Today we went to Fort Selden, which is right next to the park here. Before the dam and before the state park, there was Fort Selden, built in 1865, right along the Rio Grande river. The fort also was right along the El Camino Real De trail or (The Royal Road of the Interior) which ran north from Mexico city to Sante Fe. Melissa mentioned this in her post on the missions. The fort was built to protect traveler’s along the route from Indians and renegade cutthroats. The Fort was small in size to many of the other forts built during that time. It was made of Adobe, which was common in these parts. However it contained a high sand content and was prone to deterioration. It now is just a ruins. As a fort it had everything it needed to function, but in smaller degrees compared to the very large Fort Union. It had infantry, Calvary and a contingent of Buffalo soldier’s ( Black Soldiers.). The fort ran from 1865 to 1887. In 1881 a railroad came through just about a mile away, thus sealing the fate of the Fort. After it closed, all the wood, from the roofs, windows, doors was taken away, thus hastening the erosion of the fort. The visitor center had a great display of artifacts from the fort and old pictures of it during it’s operation.

The fort as it looked in the day.

One commander of the fort for a few years was Captain Arthur MacArthur and his wife Mary, there two kids left to right Douglas, and Arthur. Yes that is the Same General Douglas MacArthur of World War II fame.

We are now back in New Mexico, just above Las Cruces, staying for a week at Leasburg Dam State Park. The park is right along the Rio Grande river, which is dry right now. We have a nice pull thru spot and nice scenery unlike El Paso. Drove 72 miles today, north from El Paso.

The mission trail was founded way back in 1598 by Governor Don Juan de Oñate of Spain, and was the first mission trail in America. Oñate led a caravan of 500 colonists along with 12 Franciscan missionaries on an expedition to settle a new province. The colonists traveled for weeks over miles of Chihuahuan desert before finally reaching the south banks of the Rio Grande.

It was along this route that Franciscan missionaries built the missions at Ysleta, Socorro, Presidio Chapel of San Elizario, and Mision de Guadalupe, which is in Mexico. Many of the displaced natives fled to start new communities along the Rio Grande after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, which was the largest Indian revolt in the history of the Americas.    Spanish conquistadors, Franciscan clerics and native Indians took refuge along the southern bank of the Rio Grande in these Missions.

Two of the missions are the oldest continuously operated missions in the United States and a chapel. An interesting fact about them is that they used to be south of the Rio Grande in Mexico, but  since the river has changed its course over the years, they are now in the U.S.

We went to the Mission Trail Association to pick up some brochures and maps. Across the street was our first stop The Ysleta Mission.

 The Ysleta Mission is recognized as the oldest continuously operated parish in the State of Texas.

The Mission has dance demonstrations in the courtyard and on Saturdays, visitors can watch bread baking and taste fresh samples. Boy that sounds mighty good about now.

Piro Indians built Socorro’s first permanent adobe church in 1691 in what was then Socorro, Mexico. The exterior of Socorro Mission represents a thunderbird, while the interior is in the shape of a cross.

The interior of the church’s ceiling has decorated vigas (wooden beams). The mission was rebuilt in 1843 after the Old Socorro Mission was destroyed by a devastating flood in 1829. The new structure reused the roof support beams and furnishings of the old church. The cross-beams in the ceiling are recognized as the oldest original relics in Texas.

The mission had a cemetery which was so old you couldn’t read anything on the graves. They were probably from the 1600s.

San Elizario Chapel and Presidio (fort) was established in 1789 as Spanish protection against foreign control and Indian raids. In 1829 there was a flood and the chapel was rebuilt by using the original bricks from the original Presidio walls in the 1840’s. It continues to be used as an active church to this day.

We didn’t hear the 4 bells but I heard that they sound great when their ringing in all their different tones.

All three missions are Texas Historic Sites, included in the National Register of Historic Places, and certified by the National Parks Service as part of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. The missions are owned and operated by the Diocese of El Paso and managed by a parish administrator.

The missions were all beautiful and kept very clean for visitors and for the services that they each have.

All 3 missions were built from mud bricks, they were made with a combination of dirt, water, and manure.

We didn’t know it at the time but where our last stop was at the San Elizario Chapel, the city of San Elizario has a history of it’s own. It’s listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a Texas State Cultural District in 2013 (whatever a cultural district in Texas means who knows?) You can take walking tour of the city where it shows some of historic structures in San Elizario, they are a representative sample of the buildings and sites that formed one of the oldest villages in the United States.

Los Portales is the name of the road that the Museum & Information center is on in San Elizario.

We didn’t take a tour but we walked around the old town a bit.

Came to Shooters Smokin BBQ, which is named that because it’s right next to a famous jail. El Paso County’s first prison and . . . last but not least, The jail was made famous by the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid.

According to Sheriff Pat Garrett and legend, this is the only jail Billy The Kid ever broke into. Billy was said to have broken his good friend Melquiades Segura out of the Jail in December of 1876. Billy The Kid convinced Sheriff Charles Kerber that he was a Texas Ranger with a prisoner and he opened the door in the darkness. Billy overtook the Sheriff, no shots were fired and they escaped with a quick ride into Mexico.

We ended a great day by going to Carlos & Mickey’s for dinner, a highly recommended Mexican restaurant, it was as good as everyone said!

We learned a lot about The Border Patrol’s history including that it began in 1904. They didn’t have a lot of direction back then, but it was a start. Inside is their history, the adjustments and the encounters. The museum has a number of exhibits with the uniforms, equipment, photographs, and documents vehicles & weapons. You get to see the equipment the Border Patrol has used over the years and also see some of the cars and boats and other homemade vehicles used by smugglers to get drugs, people and contraband into the country.

The above vehicles were decommissioned and on display. The iconic sea foam green color was established in the 1950s, and remained the primary vehicle color until a new color scheme in 1995. It was harder to see than a white vehicle in the desert.

Lots of confiscated weapons are displayed, including improvised spears, a giant knife in a sheath inscribed “Guatemala,” and a 12 gauge shotgun seized from a Jamaican during “Operation Rumpunch.”

On horse patrol in 1924 and today, looks about the same.

The government initially provided the inspectors with a badge and a revolver. Recruits furnished their own horse and saddle, and the government provided the oats and hay for the horses. The Patrol Inspectors were paid $1,680 per year, and in December 1924 Congress approved additional funding for uniforms.

They have a wall that honors agents killed in the line of duty. 

The sign on these two motorcycle looking things said ” hand-built from lawnmower parts and scrap metal, were “fully loaded with aliens when seized, Nine people were piled on them, zipping across the desert at night.”

Another plaque describing this smuggling boat said the boat was made with automobile hoods and was used to move people across the Rio Grande River for $500 a person:

You can’t forget about dogs who assist the agents by smelling for the drugs being smuggled into the country:

The Over

The Under

Sign is the physical evidence of any disturbance of the environment left behind by animals, humans or objects. The detection of this sign is called sign cutting.

We learned a lot about the Border Patrol and what they are all about. We didn’t see any aliens but we saw where they live!

Absolutely a unique place. Hueco Tanks is an area of low mountains in El Paso, TX. Unlike the surrounding desert, Hueco Tanks still has remnants of trees  and other plants  that have descended from those that grew widely in the area at the end of the Ice Ages, 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.  You can even find unusual and even unique desert plants.                          

But what really makes it incredible is that Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site is the keeper of geography where ancient peoples left their marks in stone — a record of more than three-thousand pictographs. The meanings behind these ancient pictographs largely remain a mystery and the subject of archeological research. Among these cryptic images are more than two-hundred painted masks or face designs attributed to an ancient people.

Roughly 10 millennia ago, near the end of the Ice Ages, Hueco Tanks received its first human visitors, small nomadic bands of big-game hunters, who hunted mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, horses and camels of that time. They are called “Paleo hunters, as they left spear points as evidence of their passing. Although it is far from certain, they could have painted the first images – rock art – on the stone surfaces at Hueco Tanks.

Between ten and two millennia ago, with the Ice Ages ended, the big game extinct and the climate hotter and dryer, Hueco Tanks became a site for the comings and goings of hunters and gatherers – “Desert Archaic peoples” – who took the smaller game and harvested ripening wild plants. More culturally diverse than their Paleo ancestors, they lived in nooks and crannies or in the open desert, leaving behind grinding stones, plant fiber weavings, and bone and lithic artifacts. They painted human figures, hunting scenes and geometric designs on the stone surfaces, leaving the earliest sure evidence of rock art at the site.

From early in the first millennium A. D. to late prehistoric times, Hueco Tanks was home for a more less active people, called the Jornada Mogollon, who still hunted wild game and gathered wild plants but who also lived in small settlements, they planted corn, beans and squash and made pottery. They produced one of America’s great galleries of paintings on stone. In the 15th century the Jornada Mogollon people abandoned this area.

What the Ranch House/Interpretive Center and surroundings look like today . . .

What The Ranch House looked like 1900.

The State Park and Historic Site was originally part of a large ranch owned by Silverio Escontrias. Escontrias filed ownership papers for the ranch in 1898. He built a four-room adobe house at Hueco Tanks, and he and his wife Pilar raised 11 children here. Their ranch, which began as a cattle and horse operation, became a tourist attraction by the 1940s. Today, the park’s interpretive center is located in the family’s adobe house.             

Walking around and exploring you had to go thru some tight squeezes, negotiate loose rock, try not to squash some plant life and even step carefully going up and coming down some moderate slopes and lots of  crevices. It was a fun place to do all of that.

For centuries, ancient peoples were attracted to this area because it provided them with the one essential thing they needed in order to survive in the desert — water! The huge boulders and rocks in the area are pock-marked with fissures and holes, called huecos (whey-coes), that can hold rainwater for months at a time. Hueco is a Spanish word that means hollows, referring to the natural depressions in the boulders. These natural water tanks attracted people and animals and created microhabitats that supported a variety of living things.

Our first “Rock Art!” We haven’t seen anything this ancient made by humans, exciting!

A Mask, a Feather and ?

The materials that were available on the rocks for painting the colors were carbon and manganese for black.  Hematite and limonite made the red hues.  Limonite and ochre made yellow.  White clay and gypsum made white.  I guess it was whatever minerals, plants, oxides or vegetables you had? Paint brushes were made from stiff leaves and human hair.

Dave sees a kind of “Family Tree” as members of this families names were carved in the rock in 1853.

Did I mention that Hueco Tanks is also one of the top rock climbing places in the world ?!

I can see why after seeing it’s some of it’s terrain. The Hue Rock Rodeo is a rock climbing competition held annually in February at the park. It is highly competitive and attracts professional rock climbers from all over the world.

This was the first time Dave & I climbed a chain trail, it was a lot of fun!

The park is a National Register of Historic Places, National Historic Landmark and a Texas State Historic Site.

It’s said this is also one of the most historic spots in the Southwest, we would have to agree. Dave and I enjoyed our visit to Hueco Tanks. We enjoyed our hikes and the incredible sights. As we walked we kept imagining what it must have been like for the peoples who found refuge here many, many, many years go. Hueco Tanks was a great place to spend the day and one of the best places we’ve been to.