Hispanics have a very long history in the Southwest dating back to the early 1600s. The Old Spanish Trail trade from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to California passed through San Juan County near Monticello. No supply stations or known permanent settlements existed in the area until Mormon settlers arrived at Bluff in 1880 and Monticello in 1888. Spanish-American sheepherders were recruited by local stockmen, some of whom were Land Grant families from New Mexico, and many of these people established their own homesteads in the area. The earliest known permanent Spanish settlers were the family of Ramon Gonzalez in 1900, and other Spanish families, including the Manzanares, Gallegos, and Jaramillo families, migrated from New Mexico to the Monticello area in the early 1900s.