Part 8

Fort Wingate, at the site known today, was established in 1868. It is located on the site of a pre-existing fort at Ojo del Oso (Bear Springs) about twelve miles east of Gallup and three miles south of U.S. Highway 66.

Fort Fauntleroy was established in August 1860 and was named for the then Department Commander, Col. T. T. Fauntleroy. The name was changed to Fort Lyon in September 1861 after Colonel Fauntleroy resigned his commission and joined the Confederate forces. The fort was abandoned in December 1861 as troops were concentrated at other posts to meet the threat of invasion of the territory by Confederate forces from the south. With the defeat of Confederate troops early in 1862, the military returned to the Indian problem and established a post some sixty miles to the east on the Rio de Gallo near San Rafael. This post was named Fort Wingate in honor of Capt. Benjamin Wingate who died of wounds received during the battle with the Confederate forces at Val Verde. The post proved to be too far from the Navajo country for effective control and, in 1868, was abandoned and a new Fort Wingate established at Ojo del Oso on the site occupied earlier by Fort Fauntleroy.

The physical plant of the new Fort Wingate consisted of barracks, officers’ quarters, hospital, guard house, storehouse, employees’ quarters, corrals, barns, and various repair and storage sheds, all bordering the traditional rectangular parade ground. Some of these buildings are in use today.

In 1914, 4000 Mexican refugees lived in a tent city at Fort Wingate until peace was restored after Pancho Villa’s revolution in Mexico. Following World War I, it became an ordnance storage depot, and new administrative and living quarters were built several miles west of the original fort enclosure. This installation is known today as Fort Wingate Ordnance Depot, and the long rows of concrete ammunition storage bunkers can be seen from U.S. Highway 66. In 1925, the original fort enclosure was transferred to the Department of the Interior for use as an Indian school. Today, the parade ground is a playground and the barracks are dormitories for the children who attend this school. The missile age came to Fort Wingate in 1963 when a portion of the military reservation became the launching site for test rockets which impact at the White Sands Missile Range 200 miles to the south.

Fort Wingate has seen many changes during its long and colorful history. It served well during its first 100 years and continues to serve today.

Fort Craig

Fort Craig was established in the spring of 1854 on the abandonment of Fort Conrad, nine miles north. It was named in honor of Col. L. S. Craig who was killed by an army deserter on June 6, 1852. The remains of Fort Craig are located on the west bank of the Rio Grande about thirty-four miles south of Socorro and five miles, by dirt road, east of U.S. Highway 85. The fort was established to afford protection against the many bands of Apaches that roamed this part of the territory.

Fort Craig was well built and became one of the best-garrisoned military posts in New Mexico. Built on the usual rectangular plan, the parade ground was bordered on the northeast by two double officers’ quarters; on the northwest by the guard house, prison room, and sallyport; on the southwest by three soldiers’ barracks each in the form of a hollow square enclosing a patio; and on the southeast by various workshops, storerooms, stables, and corrals. The commanding officers’ quarters occupied the west corner of the parade ground and the hospital the east corner. Behind the commanding officers’ quarters there were three large bombproof storerooms. The entire installation was enclosed within a high wall, beyond which a ditch encircled the fort. Gun bastions projected from the north and south corners.

Fort Craig was one of the most important military posts in New Mexico. Its troops participated in many engagements with the Indian. In the fall of 1861, troops from other posts were concentrated at Fort Craig to meet the threatened invasion of Confederate forces from the south. In February 1862, these troops were defeated by the Confederate invaders in the battle of Val Verde which took place about four miles north of the fort. Upon the withdrawal of Confederate forces from the territory later in 1862, the troops at Fort Craig returned to the Indian problem. In March 1885, the fort was relinquished by the army and the improvements sold. The last soldier left in August 1885 after government property was removed and sent to Forts Bliss and Stanton. The buildings were sold at public auction on April 30, 1894, to the Valverde Land and Irrigation Company for $1070.50.

Fort Craig is now a ruin, but the outlines of most of the buildings can still be seen. Portions of the plastered walls of the commanding officers’ quarters remain, as do portions of the hospital and stone guard house. The wall and ditch surrounding the fort, gun bastions, storehouses, and cemetery are still much in evidence. Coal marks the blacksmith’s shop and broken bottles the sutler’s store. Another frontier fort has passed into history.

Fort Stanton

Fort Stanton was established in May 1855 on the Rio Bonito at a site located approximately four miles east of present-day Capitan and three miles south of U.S. Highway 380. The fort was an attempt to control the Mescalero and White Mountain Apaches and was named for Capt. H. W. Stanton who had been killed by Apache Indians earlier that year. Many a soldier stationed at Fort Stanton gave up his life to an Apache during the Indian wars.

The original fort was little more than a stockade, with few buildings and little equipment. In August 1861, the government stores were burned and the troops moved to Albuquerque in the face of the Confederate invasion. Confederate troops occupied the site one month later but promptly left after a few encounters with the Apache. The site was reoccupied by Union troops October 1862 and, later, substantial buildings were erected, most of which still stand.

With the passing of the frontier, Fort Stanton was abandoned as a military post in August 1896, and in 1899, the installation passed to the U.S. Public Health Service for use as a merchant marine hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis. During World War II, a German prisoner of war camp was established at the fort. In 1953, the hospital was closed by the federal government because of the high cost of running the establishment. Fort Stanton is now a state tuberculosis hospital operated by the New Mexico Department of Public Welfare.

Col. Kit Carson used the fort as a base of operations while rounding up the Mescalero and White Mountain Apaches in late 1862 and early 1863. In 1881, the famous outlaw, Billy the Kid, was confined in the building now used as a dental clinic while on his way to the gallows in Lincoln, which never claimed him. Gen. John J. Pershing, as a young lieutenant, was stationed for a time at Fort Stanton.

Fort Selden

Fort Selden was established in 1865 and named for Capt. Henry R. Selden (later colonel) who distinguished himself at the battle of Val Verde, February 21, 1862. The fort was beside the Rio Grande nine miles north of the settlement of Doña Ana. The site is located along U.S. Highway 85 about seventeen miles north of present-day Las Cruces.

Fort Selden was one of a chain of forts established to control the Apaches. It was on the Butterfield Trail and provided protection for the government rope ferry which crossed the Rio Grande at nearby Leasburg. The summit of Mt. Robledo, across the river to the west, was used as a heliograph station, flashing messages between Fort Selden and Fort Bliss at Franklin (El Paso, Texas).

The buildings of the fort were one-story adobe structures with walls two feet thick. The installation included barracks for enlisted men, two double officers’ quarters, a ten-bed hospital, stone guard house, storehouses, workshop, bake shop, corrals, and a magazine with stone walls three feet thick. The fort was rectangular in ground plan, the buildings enclosing a parade ground.

Fort Selden was abandoned in 1879 when the railroads began to draw travel away from the overland trails. It was reoccupied in 1881 when the Apache Chiefs Victorio, Nana, and later Geronimo were on the warpath. With the passing of the Indian problem, Fort Selden was permanently abandoned in 1892. During World War I, the grounds of the fort were used for cavalry maneuvers by units stationed at Fort Bliss.

A rather famous American once lived at Fort Selden. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, as a child of four, moved with his family to the fort in 1884, following the assignment of his father, then an infantry captain, to that post. The family remained at Fort Selden until late in 1886.

Now only crumbling adobe walls mark the site of Fort Selden, once a welcome sight to travelers in southern New Mexico. The wind, rain, and sun have taken their toll, aided in no small way by man himself. In 1963, through the efforts of the Doña Ana Historical Society, Fort Selden was made a State Monument by the New Mexico legislature. It is to be hoped that the fort will now be protected from further weathering and vandalism so that the remnants of this old outpost will stand for many years to come as a monument to the men who once manned it.

Fort Cummings

Fort Cummings was established in October 1863 in what is now Luna County, New Mexico. It was located at Cooke’s Spring, an important watering stop on the Butterfield Trail, at the eastern edge of Cooke’s Canyon. Prior to the establishment of Fort Cummings, the Apaches made frequent and fatal attacks upon travelers as they passed through the four miles of Cooke’s Canyon or stopped at the spring. Cooke’s Canyon was one of the most dangerous stretches on the Butterfield Trail. The fort was named for Maj. Joseph Cummings who was killed by Navajo Indians in August 1863. Its ruins can be reached by turning off State Highway 26 at Florida, sixteen miles northeast of Deming, and traveling seven miles to the west.

Fort Cummings was the most elaborate and best-walled fort in New Mexico. It covered an area 365 × 320 feet and was completely surrounded by a twelve-foot-high adobe wall. The main entrance was topped by a guard tower. Officers’ quarters occupied the west side of the parade ground, the hospital the north side, and soldiers’ quarters the east side. The various workshops, storerooms, offices, stables, and corrals extended along the south side of the fort.

Abandoned in August 1873, Fort Cummings was reoccupied in 1880, and then again abandoned in October 1886. Later it was used as a cattle corral by the Carpenter-Stanley Cattle Company. The spring was walled and covered, and the water piped to Florida.

Little remains of Fort Cummings today. A few weathered walls here and there among the mesquite and creosote bushes mark the site. The spring still flows, supplying water for the stock which now graze upon this “protector of the trail.”

Fort Bayard

Fort Bayard, established in 1865 to protect the miners and settlers moving into the area following the Civil War, allowed the orderly development of what was to become New Mexico’s most important mineral-producing area. Named for Capt. George D. Bayard who was wounded repeatedly during Indian forays and who died of wounds received in the Battle of Fredricksburg (Va.) during the Civil War, the fort was located about five miles southeast of Pinos Altos and about midway between the mining towns of Pinos Altos and Santa Rita. The site is about nine miles east of present-day Silver City, just north of State Highway 90.

The original fort consisted of log and adobe buildings forming a square around the parade ground. During its thirty-four year history as an army post, many changes and additions were made to the fort, including the building of two-storied officers’ quarters. In 1899, the line troops were removed and the fort was officially designated as a U.S. Army General Hospital to treat tubercular soldiers. In 1920, the hospital was turned over to the Public Health Department; in 1922, to the U.S. Veterans Administration; and again, in 1966, to the State Health Department as a facility for the care of the aged and of tuberculosis cases. It can now accommodate more than 300 patients. The modern buildings are a far cry from the dirt-floored log and adobe buildings of the original fort.

HISTORY

_Pre-Civil War Period._

The period 1846 to 1861 was characterized by constant Indian warfare. Treaties were made, then broken. Forts were established, then abandoned, and new forts built as the military tried in vain to cope with the problem. Punitive expeditions proved ineffective as the Indians separated into small and predatory bands which overran the country.

Forts Union, Marcy, Fauntleroy, Craig, and Stanton were established during this period. Additional forts, whose sites have returned to the desert, are Fort Conrad (1851), on the Rio Grande about twenty-five miles south of Socorro; Fort Thorn (1853), on the Rio Grande about five miles north of Hatch; Fort Fillmore (1851), on the Rio Grande about seven miles south of Las Cruces; Fort Webster (1852), on the Mimbres River about one and one-half miles northwest of San Lorenzo; Fort McLane (1860), at Apache Tejo about four miles south of Hurley; and Fort Floyd (1857), on the Gila River about two miles south of Cliff.

_Civil War Period._

The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 created a new problem on the frontier in New Mexico. Confederate military leaders moved quickly to seize control of the Southwest and California to cut off the supply of gold to the North and divert it to the Confederacy. Confederate troops under Col. J. B. Baylor occupied abandoned Fort Bliss at Franklin (El Paso), Texas on July 1, 1861. Baylor began his move northward along the Rio Grande on July 23 and quickly occupied Mesilla. Nearby Fort Fillmore was abandoned and the Union forces retreated toward Fort Stanton, but they were soon captured by Baylor’s troops. Upon the fall of Fort Fillmore, Fort Stanton was hastily abandoned on August 2 and was taken over by the Confederates shortly thereafter.

Gen. H. H. Sibley arrived at Fort Bliss in December 1861 to assume command of the Confederate forces. Sibley’s troops moved northward along the Rio Grande and were engaged in battle by Union troops from Fort Craig, under Gen. E. R. S. Canby, as they attempted to bypass the well-garrisoned post. The Battle of Val Verde took place four miles north of Fort Craig on February 21, 1862. After a day of bloody fighting, Sibley emerged the victor. He occupied Albuquerque on March 2, 1862, and Santa Fe on March 23. The Confederate forces then moved toward Fort Union in an attempt to gain complete control of the territory. On March 27 and 28, they were met by Union forces sent out from Fort Union and were defeated in battle near present-day Glorieta. Sibley then retreated to Fort Bliss.

While Sibley was thus engaged, another part of his army moved across what is now southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona and occupied Tucson (Arizona). Gen. J. H. Carleton and his California Column left Los Angeles on April 13 and cleared this area of Confederate troops, reaching the Rio Grande on August 7. Carleton reoccupied Fort Bliss, which had been abandoned by the Confederate troops in their retreat.

_Post-Civil War Period._

While the Union troops were preoccupied with the Confederates, the Indians stepped up their raids and depredations. With the passing of the Confederate threat, attention was once more focused on the Indian problem. A new plan was formulated which called for the capturing of the Indians and confining them to reservations. A reservation (Bosque Redondo) was established late in 1862 near present-day Fort Sumner, New Mexico, to which were eventually confined several thousand Navajos and Mescalero Apaches. This resettlement was not a success since the Apaches ran off and the Navajos suffered greatly from sickness and disease. A treaty was signed with the Navajos in 1868, and they were allowed to return to their homes, no longer a threat to the frontier. The Mescalero Apaches were finally settled on a reservation in their own country south of Fort Stanton, and the Jicarillas on a reservation west of Tierra Amarilla.

The Mimbreno, Mogollon, and Warm Springs Apaches of southwestern New Mexico were more of a problem. In 1871, a reservation and Fort Tularosa were established near present-day Aragon in western New Mexico. After a futile attempt to keep the Indians there, they were moved in 1874 to a new reservation and military post at Ojo Caliente, about forty miles northwest of present-day Truth or Consequences. This, too, proved a failure and the Apaches were moved to the San Carlos Reservation in what is now Arizona. During these attempts to locate the Apaches on reservations, various rebellious bands of Apaches led by Victorio, Nana, and Geronimo continued on the warpath. Geronimo and his band surrendered in 1886 and were imprisoned in Florida. After Geronimo’s surrender, relative peace descended upon the frontier in New Mexico.

Established in the post-Civil War period were Forts Wingate (old and new), Selden, Cummings, and Bayard, as well as Fort Lowell (1868), near Tierra Amarilla; Fort Bascom (1863), on the Canadian River about eight miles north of Tucumcari; Fort Sumner (1862), on the Pecos River about five miles southeast of present-day Fort Sumner; Fort McRae (1863), on the Rio Grande about ten miles northeast of Truth or Consequences; and Fort West (1863), on the Gila River about two miles south of Cliff.

With the arrival of the railroad and cessation of hostilities with the Indians, a new era was begun. One by one, the old forts were abandoned: their need had passed. The colorful frontier forts of New Mexico are just a memory now.

Our National Heritage

National Forests in the so-called “desert” state of New Mexico cover more than 8.5 million acres, about 11 per cent of the state’s area. National Monuments and Carlsbad Caverns National Park only extend over about 430 square miles but cover ten of New Mexico’s most scenic areas that are of national geologic, archeologic, and historic interest. These are our national heritage, set aside by the federal government for the perpetual equal use of all Americans.

The forests cap the higher ranges of the state, except on windblown peaks that extend above the timberline. They provide protection for the watersheds that feed New Mexico’s rivers, supply about 125 million board feet of cut timber each year, and yield forage for more than 150,000 cattle and sheep. Picnic nooks and camp grounds are plentiful, fish abound in the rushing mountain streams, and big game awaits the hunter throughout the forest lands. The primitive virgin wilderness is preserved in its natural state, accessible only by pack trip, in the Gila Wilderness area of the Diablo and Mogollon mountains north of Silver City and the Pecos Wilderness area east of Santa Fe in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Incomparable Carlsbad Caverns is in the state’s only National Park. National Monuments include the glistening gypsum dunes of White Sands, the volcanic cone of Capulin Mountain, the prehistoric ruins of Chaco Canyon, Aztec Ruins, Bandelier, and Gila Cliff Dwellings, the Spanish ruins at Gran Quivira, Inscription Rock at El Morro, and the crumbling walls of old Fort Union. In the near future, Valle Grande may be added to the National Park System and will include Valle Caldera, one of the world’s largest volcanic calderas, a mountainous jumble with cool streams, thick coniferous forests, and lush high meadows.

NEW MEXICO’S BIG SHARE OF THE NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM

_by_ H. V. Reeves, Jr.[2]

In contemplating the growth of cities and towns, the insatiable suburbs, congested streets and highways, the acres of dump yards for discarded automobiles, legions of billboards upstaging mountain ranges and seashores, and the melancholy predictions of demographers who say that within thirty years there will be twice as many of us, consider this: for New Mexico in particular, the outlook is not utterly bleak.

Some ninety years ago, without anything approaching the present-day horrible example before them, some farsighted, selfless, tireless individuals began to work to set aside areas of outstanding scenic, scientific, and historical interest so that they would not be engulfed by humanity. Often against strong opposition, these benefactors succeeded in bringing about legislation that bounded many such areas and defined laws to protect them. The areas became national parks, monuments, and historic sites. And in 1916, the National Park Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, was established to administer the units of the National Park System.

Today, other selfless individuals are contributing their time and effort to bring additional areas into the National Park System before they are lost forever. For example, Pecos ruins became a National Monument in late 1966 (see page 106).

Not every suggested area possesses the qualities that merit preservation, qualities of national significance. Proposed areas receive careful study before they are recommended for inclusion within the system—recommended to the Congress by the Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary’s recommendations are based on those received from the Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings, and Monuments. This board is composed of eleven private citizens, each of whom is competent in one or more of the following fields: history, natural history, archeology, architecture, conservation, and recreation.

Diverse in character, New Mexico’s ten units of the National Park System are of geologic, scenic, archeological, and historical interest. A visit to each unit will disclose the qualities that have been judged to be of national significance.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Incomparable Carlsbad Caverns, in southeastern New Mexico, includes a single underground chamber so expansive that its floor could accommodate fourteen football fields and its ceiling could hold a 22-story building; other chambers that contain countless cave formations of great variety of shape and color; cool and naturally circulating fresh air; and a system of lighting that reveals the beauty and spaciousness most effectively.

Since the temperature within the Caverns remains at about 56°F the year round, warm clothing is needed. Comfortable shoes, too, for the four-hour, three-mile complete tour, which starts at the natural entrance. Shorter trips, the Big Room tours that start at the elevators in the visitor center, take in only a part of the underground chambers. All tours are under leadership of competent park guides who answer questions and explain the earth processes that have resulted in the caverns and their amazing decorations.

From the natural entrance, the immense main corridor of the Caverns is followed downward 829 feet for one and three-quarters miles. This brings visitors to the most scenic rooms (the Green Lake Room, King’s Palace, Queen’s Chamber, and Papoose Room), where the stalactites, stalagmites, and helictites reach their peak in numbers, shapes, and delicate coloring. The trail leads upward 80 feet from the Papoose Room to the lunchroom. Near the lunchroom is the Big Room, the most majestic of the Caverns’ chambers. The trail around its perimeter, one and a quarter miles long, encompasses a floor space of fourteen acres.