Located off US Highway 160 at Milepost 109, the Deer Valley Estates recorded history began when the area was settled for ranching and farming in the late 1870’s. The old log cabin on Lot 39 was lived in by someone named Black and was once a stagecoach station. The stage line operated until 1890 and ran from Ignacio up to the Sauls Creek area through the current Deer Valley on its way to above Bayfield and on over to Durango. The stage trip from Bayfield to Durango took 4 hours in good weather. An old sawmill was operated on Lot 31 back in the logging days.
As an early settler/farmer, William Wieland came to Bayfield in the late 1870’s from Wisconsin and filed a homestead application on two and one-quarter sections on Beaver Creek in 1884. Loleet recalled the Deer Valley part of the ranch being called “Rattlesnake Hill” as well as “Coyote Draw”, due to number of rattlesnakes and coyotes. There were so many cattle injured by the snakes that it made cattle ranching an extremely difficult operation. Ernest passed in 1974 at age 79, and Loleet passed in 1993 at age 87.
In the 1970’s when the economy declined, the original property developer was in dire financial stress and died when his plane flew into the side of a Colorado mountain. A bank in Plano, Texas had the paper on the land and after the courts finally settled his estate in the late 1970’s, the land was sold in 1980 to Fenney and Associates (Andrew Fenney and Gordon Engelen) of Addison, Texas to finish the development. The property was re-platted, the roads were re-engineered, and the subdivision was named Deer Valley Estates. Fenney and Associates began selling Deer Valley lots in late 1980.
When the lots were essentially sold out in 1984, the property owners’ association then took a more active role and elected its first board of directors at a meeting on March 3, 1984, in Dallas. Fencing was completed in 1984. Water rights were purchased in 1985, as well as roads were completed to all lots. Electric was extended to all lots in 1986. Telephone service installation was completed in 1990. The automatic gate was installed in 1994. After discovering discrepancies in lot property lines in 1996, the resurvey of the entire development was begun in 1997. Vallecito Water Company sold shares in 1997 for water service to Deer Valley in their Phase 3.
The first Deer Valley home was completed by Bert and Juanita Jones, originally of Pasadena, Texas, on Lot 78 in 1985. They were also the first full-time Deer Valley residents and with their son, Anson lived in Deer Valley from 1985 to 1992, at which time they moved back to Pasadena due to failing health. Both Bert and Juanita have passed on. Anson Jones used the home as a summer residence until he passed on in 2022. Home building at Deer Valley in the 80’s was slow like the U.S. economy. By the end of the decade, three homes, with only one housing full-time residents, were at Deer Valley. Home building activity increased in the 1990 and 2000’s for a total of 56 Deer Valley homes by the end of 2013.
