This section is a complex and colorful mass of landforms scattered
helter-skelter across the western part of the state. It stretches from
the green Rio Grande Valley, with its irrigated lands, quaint farms, and
picturesque agricultural villages, up the Valley’s steep western slopes
to the rolling grassland and mesas and alluvial fans, ending in
precipitous and treacherous canyons in the rugged mountains. Socorro
Mountain, the Magdalenas, the San Mateos, the Ladrones, and countless
others seem always to ring the horizon. Some of them are timbered and
abound in cool, refreshing shade and springs; some are harsh and dry. In
the west, the famed San Agustin Plains stretch to the sunset, a wide
carpet fringed by black, timbered hills, site of fabulous cattle drives
of a bygone day. The complexity of the region’s geology, scenery, and
terrain is matched by an equally complex history.
The history is a mosaic of many hues, some harsh and stark like its dry
desert mountains, some inviting like the shade and coolness of its
timbered canyons and mountain springs. First were the many diverse and
sometimes hostile Indian cultures. There were peaceful pueblo peoples
tilling their lands, using the Rio Grande’s flowing water to produce
abundance. Also, prehistoric village dwellers struggled to create
agricultural societies along the banks of now-dry rivers in the western
part of the region. And there were the fearsome Apache Indians who
founded their homes in the broken mountain fastnesses and added their
excitement and tragedy to the mosaic. So, too, did the Spaniard make his
mark and the Mexican who followed close behind. The place names of the
eastern part of the region are primarily Spanish, although the Spanish
found the area a difficult one in which to maintain themselves. And then
the American came to dominate this land, adding realism and technology.
Finally, two major economic factors left a profound imprint: stock
raising and mining. The first began with the Spanish, was continued by
the Mexicans, and commercialized by the Americans. Everywhere are signs
of this heritage. Mining also played a dominant role, although of a
shorter duration. One can hardly lift his eyes to the hills without
seeing signs of the prospectors shovel or the miner’s work. One can
hardly converse with local citizens without discussing mines of the past
or mines of the future. Livestock and minerals, then, are woven through
the historical pattern and are never far from any part of the story.
Let the traveler be aware of several important facts when he passes
through this region. First, this is empty country, an area that has
fewer people now than it had eighty years ago. Its mines are mostly
closed and the towns that grew with the mines are ghosts. One of the
most famous of these is the town of Kelly, a short distance from the
community of Magdalena. Another is Mogollon, off U.S. Highway 180 in the
southwestern part of this region. Either of these will give to the
viewer a vivid picture of the mining camps of the nineteenth century.
To the average tourist crossing the San Agustin Plains, they seem
desolate and uninteresting. To the traveler with imagination and
knowledge of the history of this once great inland lake, the trip can be
exciting. He pictures this great basin full of water, forty-five miles
long and fifteen miles wide, and sees mountains covered with blue spruce
surrounding the great lake. His mental motion picture rolls on thousands
of years, watching the water evaporate and the forest of spruce die, to
be replaced eventually by the piñon and juniper now dotting the hills.
Grass grew in the old lake bed, except in the last areas to evaporate,
for these had an alkali content too high for most grasses. The traveler
then watches the Indian enter the scene—not the pueblo builder, except
as a transient, for no water is available. The nomadic warrior uses the
pathway later. In 1774 and in 1776, he sees several important battles
between the Spanish and the Apaches fought on these Plains. Later, the
American cattleman dominates them, as he does today....
And so the mosaic grows—Indians, Spanish, Americans, cattle, and
mines—and the spectacular vistas and the vast emptiness add color and
excitement for the traveler who sees the past with the present.