One of the state’s newest parks, Oasis is seven miles northeast of
Portales along State Highway 467. This shady place of cottonwood trees
amid sand dunes has long been a favorite picnic spot. The sand dunes
form an irregular ridge separating Portales Valley to the south from
Blackwater Draw to the north. In Blackwater Draw have been found bones
of ancient animals and the weapons used by early man some 12,000 years
ago. Portales Valley is the sand-filled remnant of the early Pleistocene
Brazos River Valley that once drained eastward into Texas. About 800,000
years ago, the Pecos River to the west “captured” the headwaters of this
former Brazos River and left the Portales Valley high and dry.