The next time Taos citizens debate whether to change the name of Kit Carson Park, they should consider calling it Acequia Madre Park. There would be no Placita de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, or town of Don Fernando de Taos, without the Acequia Madre del RÃo Pueblo. There would be no park.Â
The Acequia Madre del RÃo Pueblo permitted growth that one day would threaten its very existence. Originally it conveyed only sobrante or surplus water rights to settlers of the 1796 Don Fernando de Taos land grant. These vecinos inserted their acequia madre upstream from community diversions in Ranchitos and downstream from Taos Pueblo. They received sobrantes to supplement the irrigation water they were already diverting, along with people in Cañon, from the RÃo Fernando.Â