The Pinos Altos Story. Dorothy Watson

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СКАЧАТЬ Bayard was established in 1869.

      All during the ’60’s supplies had to be brought in by pack trains over rough trails. The 10 mile trail to Santa Rita was the most direct line crossing above present Fort Bayard and across the mountains to Whiskey Creek. The pack trains from Mesilla left the main road to Santa Rita at Fort McLane (Apache Tejo) and came straight to camp. Game was plentiful but hunters had to be sent out daily to keep the people supplied with meat. It was never safe for one man to hunt alone so small parties took turns with the understanding that the venison, bear and other game would be shared by all. The Hill Brothers left the camp to ranch on the Gila at what was known for years as the Hill and later the Gila Hot Springs (now Doc Campbell’s). There they raised vegetables and made jerky of venison which were brought to camp. James McKenna, author of Black Range Tales, engaged in such trade. The miners made periodic trips to the springs to bathe and sweat out the grime, smoke and the effects of bad whiskey. In 1868 Ancheta had a trading post in the original part of the old store building which burned in 1957. The handmade wrought iron box found in the ruins may have been his strong box. That same year he operated an arrastra, the remains of which can still be seen on the “Mill Site” now belonging to L. E. Nichols.

      Mr. Robert K. Bell, as a boy, lived at the Ancheta Ranch, (the Ward Lodge in Little Cherry) and he told the story of the original stone house. Sr. Ancheta had taken up land near the Twin Sisters and had a goat ranch. This land is said to be the first land patented in Grant County. Ancheta went to Mexico for a visit and was a guest at an hacienda where he fell in love with the wife of his host. He persuaded her to run away with him and come to Pinos Altos. The house was built for her. The port holes were designed to keep off the pursuing husband and relatives as well as the Indians.

      There was no formal organization, nor survey made of the camp until 1867. Anson Mills, later a prominent figure in the history of El Paso, was sent by a member of the famous Maverick family to make a mineral survey and report of this district. Evidently Mills’ report was not satisfactory to Mr. Maverick for he took no further interest in this section but Mills stayed. The residents felt that to make their rights to improvements secure they should take legal action so a Pinos Altos Town Company was organized. It had hired Mills to survey and plot the town conforming to government survey lines. According to the file in the county courthouse, transferred to Grant from Dona Ana, “streets had been laid off and graded, four bridges built over Bear Creek, and some wells sunk”. The file also states that “The first settlement had been made in 1860. In 1868 it had 600 to 700 inhabitants, 120 houses, two stamp mills, a number of arrastras, three furnaces for smelting silver, two hotels, and several mercantile establishments.” Incidentally, there were seven saloons, but instead of being listed separately they may have been classed as “mercantile” establishments. “The town embraced 320 acres, twenty miles from the Gila River and 110 from the Rio Grande by the nearest traveled road.” The town company was incorporated and the deed signed by “Samuel J. Jones, vice president, acting for persons” and dated July 3, 1868. Grant County was formed from Dona Ana that same year and Pinos Altos was made the county seat, 1869-1871. The county’s first court house is now owned by Mrs. Mabel Eckerd of Lordsburg. Only one term of court was held, presided over by Judge H. B. Johnson. It has been described as “the gayest and loudest ever held in the Rocky Mountain region.” A band furnished music, refreshments were handy, and two condemned men were taken out and hanged from the same tree where Dan Diamond met his fate.

      Trolius Stephens brought his wife overland by mule train from Nebraska in 1873. She was the first, and for several years, the only American woman in town, excepting Miss Parker who had been here eleven years before. They were the grandparents of Cecil Stephens of Arenas Valley. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stephens were interested in welfare of the people, they visited the sick, cared for the injured, and saw to it that no family was cold or hungry. He contended that a man was worth but $1.25 a day from the neck down but that there was no limit to his worth from the neck up. He paid accordingly. He could not or would not tolerate stealing. On one occasion when he noticed that wood was disappearing from the town’s large wood yard, and the man in charge of it said that he did not know how, when, or by whom, Mr. Stephens said he would “fix the guy.” He bored holes in several sticks of wood and put in dynamite. Before sunrise the next morning a mighty blast shook the town. Mr. Stephens rushed out and saw a roof rising into the brightening sky and above were several black disks, the lids from the kitchen stove—in the home of his cousin.

      Fuel for homes and mills was juniper and oak wood cut in the hills into cord lengths and packed into town by burros. Ore from the mines was taken to the mills in the same manner. Often there were as many as twenty burros to a train. The trails they used still stand out on the mountain sides, as do the old roads from the saw mills, where the logs were hauled out by oxen. Among the names of men who operated early sawmills are Ripley, Scott, McMillan, Brownell and Franey, who came in ’81 or ’82. He was joined in 1902 by his nephew, Thomas Foy, a rosy cheeked boy fresh from old Ireland. Later there were Davidson, Slack, Leonard, Mason and others.

      From the earliest days when both Mexicans and Americans traveled through the country they would camp at the springs the Mexicans had called Cienega de San Vicente. Miners from Pinos Altos tried raising corn and beans there, but being loathe to leave their diggings to care for the crops, Indians or animals destroyed them. Captain A. J. Hulburt, more daring and persistent than other miners, built a cabin and took his Mexican wife there to live during the growing season. He would ride to and from his mine, the “Texas” on the western slope of the mountain, a distance of seven miles. One day he left his rifle at the cabin with his wife and son and went out to plow his field. Looking up he saw Apaches between himself and the house. Knowing he could not rescue his family he ran to the mines, hoping his wife would be able to stand off the marauders until he could get help. Almost exhausted he gasped out his story. The men grabbed their guns, mounted their animals and hurried to the cabin, only to find it smouldering, the wife and son dead, and the Indians gone.

      When this place was selected as a town site in 1872 and was named “Silver City”, Dick Hudson remarked, “That’s a hell of a name to give a town on a mud flat.” Later he wrote, “The only rival the Tall Pine City is ever destined to have sprang into existence as if by magic”. He was wrong in his use of the word “only”. A quarter of a century later a writer in The Enterprise referred to Pinos Altos as “an abandoned camp in Silver City’s back yard”. He, too, used one wrong word—“abandoned”. The opening of mines to the south and west drew many miners away and more adventurers were attracted to this district. Many of these men wanted to get rich quick and engaged in illicit mining deals. The result was that many claims were not being worked. The newcomers were more inclined to gamble than to use a pick and shovel. It was helpful to have a nearer source of supplies but the cost was just as great and business declined. In those days ox teams would leave Pinos Altos in midmorning and camp at the Half-Way Rock for the night. Early the next morning they would proceed to Silver City where the wagons were loaded, then they came back to the Half-Way camp and on to Pinos Altos the third day. Once a band of Apaches attacked but were unsuccessful. Another time they swooped down on the stage between the old Brent Ranch and Pinon Hill, wounding the driver and killing one mule. “Chinamen” were among the passengers and they put up such a good fight that the Indians rode off. Old “One-Armed-Juan” Esquejeda told of having goats taken from his place almost in the center of town and about the same time Willie Fletcher and some of his pals went swimming in a pool formed by a dam in Arroya Rico. Their scattered clothing was left on a bank. A group of young braves came down the gulch and stood watching the splashing boys. They gathered up the clothing and departed. The boys waited until dark before slipping home. Some time during the ’70’s Silvario Gutierrez returned to his family after having been a captive of the Apaches for seven years. His family had given him up for dead and although he had been very small when captured he, fortunately, remembered his “pet” name. He was the grandfather of Manuel Gutierrez of Santa Rita and of Virginia Terrazas and Nora Garcia.

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