The Kilbourne Volcano near Deming

Photo by Thomas McGuire

Try to imagine, if you will, traveling along a deserted, sandy, narrow, semi-graded track in the middle of the south central New Mexican desert. Everywhere you gaze, there is a myriad of thorny mesquite, interspersed with the ever present chaparral brush (also called creosote bush or greasewood), dry yellow grass, and tall yucca plants.

Here and there a fast moving lizard darts across the sandy road in front of you, or maybe even a slithering prairie or diamondback rattler crosses your path.

Eight or so miles along this desolate stretch you see hills rising out of the flat desert floor. These hills stretch for almost two miles north to south and rise to a height of nearly three stories. They are also covered with chaparral and yuccas, but there is one large difference between these and any others in the area: These hills are actually sand dunes that form the east and north rims of an ancient volcanic steam crater known as Kilbourne Hole.

The sandy track takes you to the south rim, and instead of being up on a lofty mountain dome, you find yourself still on the desert floor peering into a gigantic hole, because Kilbourne is actually a sunken crater.

The crater is actually called a marre, and scientists, who know far more than I, theorize that lava flowing from nearby Aden Crater flowed over the earth’s surface and cooked the west limestone beneath. After a time, there was a steam explosion that produced the Kilbourne Hole. From the south the view is spectacular. The “hole” stretches for more than 1 1/4 miles across and reaches a depth of nearly 300 feet in places.

Peridotite or Precious Green Olivine at Kilborne Volcano

Photo by Larry Lightner

Not only is Kilbourne unique in being Southern New Mexico’s largest steam crater, but it has another distinction: It is the site of a rare, semi-precious gemstone known as Peridotite or Precious Green Olivine.

This gem lies mostly on the inner eastern and northern slopes just above the rimrock, and is found in various sizes of crumbly rock up to the size of one’s fist, or it can be found commonly in “bombs” which are softball sized chunks of rock which when broken open, reveal the semi-precious olivine.

Besides the green olivine, we found rusty reds, golds, purples, brown and black forms of the gem. My wife descended to the floor of the crater and there found some interesting “fingers” which resembled polished jasper or marble.

If you go in search of this stone, be prepared. You’ll need a rock hammer, a small bucket, a five gallon bucket left at your vehicle, safety glasses and leather gloves. The weather is mostly sunny and very bright, so take sunglasses, a brimmed hat, long sleeved shirt, long trousers, and either sneakers or hiking shoes.

The hike up and over the dunes can be very physically demanding because the east slopes are comprised of soft, deep sand, and the west slopes are very steep and rocky – and you must descend 100 to 200 feet to get the the “good stuff.”

And . . . you must always be on the alert for desert rattlesnakes!

I’ve been to Kilbourne twice and each time I came away with a five gallon bucket of peridotite for my rock garden. Outside of Kilbourne, you can only find this gemstone in Southwest Arizona, St. John’s Isle in the Red Sea, and in Burma.

The best and only way I know to get to Kilbourne is to travel Interstate 10 between Deming and Las Cruces, New Mexico to Exit 116. Go south off the interchange and take an immediate left onto a paved road which parallels the interstate to the east. A couple of miles on, the pavement ends and you turn right and head south for several more miles until you reach railroad tracks. Here the graded road turns left and you follow it and the tracks both east then south. From the time you leave this last pavement it will be 28.5 to 29.5 miles (depending on the accuracy of your odometer) until you reach a tiny, deserted junction with a shed or two. Turn right and head west for almost nine miles to the south rim of the volcano.

All of the dirt roads are graded but rough with washboard and some soft, drifted sandy areas. I recommend a four wheel drive vehicle or at the least, a two wheel drive pickup. This is no place for a passenger car, even if it is front wheel drive! Allow two hours driving time once you leave the pavement.

If you’re a rockhound or just like to see spectacular sights, then Kilbourne just may be your ticket.

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The Luna County Courthouse in Deming, New Mexico

Red-brick monuments to Deming’s past as a turn-of-the-century western outpost still stand sentinel in the downtown area. These sturdy buildings figure as prominently into business, life and politics now as they did in their heyday. By enduring two world wars and major changes in transportation and communication, the structures affirm Deming’s historical continuity in the Southwest:  a dominant place of respite on the trail to elsewhere that never outgrows its usefulness.

From cable networks to Interstate 10, from the railroad to the Butterfield Trail, and from Apache roaming grounds to the ancient Mimbres-Paquime Indian trading connection,  Deming is a vital and lasting rest stop.

Of those who have stayed, many have turned Luna County into an important farming and ranching community. Others have built businesses catering to tourists and retirees. More acres of green chile are grown in the county than anywhere in the state, much of it processed at Deming’s Border Foods, the largest green chile processor in the U.S. Country Club Estates, an adult subdivision catering to snowbirds who decide to roost in a small town setting, was recently named to Where to Retire Magazine’s list of America’s 100 Best Master Planned Communities.

Deming is the fastest growing city in the state, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics. The population increased by 3,000 people between 1990 and 1998, a growth rate of 27 percent. Growth is coming from a diverse combination of new people moving into the area:  retirees from the Midwest, Border Patrol and government employees, and medical personnel and teachers, says real estate agent Rena Bulsterbaum of Suncrest Realty, Inc.

Cotton fields against the backdrop of the Florida Mountains in Luna County

Growth is having a positive effect on the town, Bulsterbaum said, because it’s forcing the community to increase services and upgrade their quality. “Deming has always been a place for new people,” city administrator John Strand said. “Look at the old Harvey House.”

The Harvey House was an upscale restaurant chain built by the Santa Fe Railroad at important depots, said Art Roman, archivist with the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum. The young women who worked there, known as the Harvey Girls, lived in a section of the house for employees. “There was no hanky-panky with the girls,” Roman said. Built in 1881, just after the silver spike was placed near Deming connecting the second transcontinental railroad, the house is now used as the train depot.

“Deming is rich in heritage tourism,” says Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Dorothy Victor. “It has a good mix of ingredients. The buildings tell the story of the late 1880s.” A walk through downtown Deming is a living historical tribute to turn-of-the-century architecture and Deming’s heyday as an important stop on the railroad. Many buildings are on the register and house stops, plus they hide a secret labyrinth of underground tunnels.

One building with an abundance of stories to tell is the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum, a former National Guard Armory built during World War I. “It’s a museum within a historical site,” Victor said. Fittingly, the museum itself is staffed by an army of 70 volunteers who are mostly retirees, RVers and snowbirds.

The museum boasts the world’s largest permanent collection of Mimbres pottery. Much of the collection was contributed by Jim King, who dug up the ancient treasures in southwestern New Mexico. “This is what put us on the map,” said Garrett, who helped arrange and display the pottery.

Deming Luna Mimbres Museum volunteer Andy Anderson points to a display of classic Mimbres pottery remakes.

The Mimbreno people lived along the Mimbres River between 950 and 1200 A.D. and are named after the desert willows which still grow along the banks of the ephemeral river. Many pottery designs contain mirror images, thought to reflect the river lifestyle of the people.

It is believed the Mimbreno Indians traded with a group of Indians called the Paquime in what is now the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Ancient pottery and modern replications serve as the basis of an international tour loop, the Mimbres-Paquime Connection, which promotes the cultures of the two groups. Deming and its pottery collection rest between the anchors of the tour, the Gila Cliff Dwellings near Silver City and the Paquime ruins near Casas Grandes, Mexico.

Although digging for Mimbres pottery in old gravesites in no longer allowed, there is a state park near Deming where digging and taking souvenirs is not only allowed, but encouraged. Rockhound State Park, at the base of the Little Florida Mountains, attracts rockhounds who often travel from one gem and mineral show to another. Deming has much to offer rock enthusiasts, including at least three gem and mineral shows, rockhound organizations, mining and collecting experiences, and a display of more than 10,000 geodes, also called Thunder Eggs, donated by local amateur geologist Paul “The Geode Kid” Colburn.

“I recognized early on that each deposit has unique thunder eggs,” he said. “You could mix up thunder eggs from a hundred different locations and I’d be able to tell where they came from.” Of the deposits he’s staked claims to and named, his favorite is the Baker Egg Mine, 35 miles southwest of Deming. Colburn offers guided tours of local mines in the fall and winter for a small fee.

While volcanic conditions were right to create geodes and thunder eggs 20 to 40 million years ago near Deming, now they are perfect for wine grapes. “Both water and soil are conducive for growing grapes and plenty of sunshine helps too,” said Florent Lescombes, vice president of St. Clair Winery and New Mexico Vineyards. The winery, which also offers tours and a tasting room, is owned by a family of sixth-generation French grape growers and wine makers. New Mexico became attractive to the family, Florent said, because of its abundance of cheap land and a climate similar to Algeria, where the business started. After trying a couple of other locations, the Lescombes family settled in Deming and took over the bankrupt St. Clair winery. At any given time 200,000 gallons of wine are aging on the premises. During the peak season the winery makes 100,000 gallons of wine; 25,000 bottles are filled a day.

Deming’s premier event, however, is the Great American Duck Race, which boasts “Pure Water, Fast Ducks.” Held each year on the last weekend in August, not only can participants race a live duck, personally trained by former Demingite, Robert Duck (that’s really his name) of Bosque Farms, but they can also compete in a tortilla toss or outhouse race.

“Deming’s future success will lie in its ability to balance growth with industry and economic development,” Bulsterbaum says. On the horizon is a community effort to do that through a federal government designation as an enterprise community. Another source of economic growth might be the development of maquiladoras (border town assemby plants) with neighboring Palomas, Mexico, that would attract suppliers and supporters to the town, said Sam Coleman, Executive Director of the Border Authority.

In the meantime, Deming waits as an oasis within the Chihuahuan Desert for visitors old and new to find comfort in her gates.

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People looking at rocks at Rockhound State Park near Deming, New Mexico. Photo by Carla DeMarco.

I used to lug rocks home. I saw a work of art in the form of an easily pocketed little rock, and just had to claim it for my own. In the Southwest one finds so many interesting rocks, this is a common response to a stroll in the country. You can’t do this just anywhere, believe it or not – the Park Service doesn’t permit it in the National Parks, for example. There are places where rocks should not be picked up:  At Trinity site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated, a green glass, ‘trinitite,’ was created by the blast, and though visitors were begged not to pick it up, they did, and it’s all gone.

Rockhound State Park entrance Photo by Carla DeMarco.

Near the trailhead are labelled samples of the kinds of rocks you will see. We looked these over first and then headed up the trail. The more I watched the ground, the more color jumped out at me:  bright yellow and warm red turned out to be varieties of jasper. We saw some rocks with layers of velvety crystals, some that looked squeezed into layers – heat and pressure beneath the surface do this.

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City of Rocks. Photo by Mark Erickson.

The landscape of Southern New Mexico, West Texas, and northern Mexico has not always looked like it does today. In fact, beginning some 45 million years ago, parts of the region literally exploded, dramatically altering the shape of things. Time after time, volcanoes in the area erupted, spewing forth immense quantities of thick lava and clouds of boulder-to-dust-sized rock fragments. Torrential rains caused mudflows of volcanic debris to surge off the hillsides, drowning valleys and basins in mucky layers of debris. Lava oozed into horizontal and vertical cracks in the older layers, doming up whole areas, forming peaks, and hardening in rooster-comb-like dikes.

After several million years of relative calm, the area exploded again with volcanic activity. This time, fiery clouds of burning ash blew out of dozens of vents, burying hundreds of square miles of the landscape. The ash layers were so hot that the particles fused together when they settled, forming thick layers of solid rock called tuff. The many vents poured forth more hot ash layers, and finally, layers of basalt and other molten lava atop the earlier tuffs. At the same time, earthquakes split the landscape along a series of north-south-trending faults, pushing some sections of the earth’s crust up, and dropping others down. Some pieces broke and tilted crazily, others stayed more or less intact. Today’s many, small, north-south-trending mountain ranges, including the Franklins, the Organs and the San Andres were formed by this earth movement.

One particular layer of tuff deposited during these times of cataclysmic change now forms one of the region’s many geologic oddities: City of Rocks State Park, about 30 miles north of Deming, New Mexico. City of Rocks is named for the dense cluster of house-sized rocks that sits in a bowl-shaped basin. The rocks, eroded along natural joints into queer giant forms, are part of one of the early tuff formations from the long-vanished volcanic vents. Faulting pushed the area upwards, allowing erosion to strip away the thick layers of rock that once lay above this tuff layer. With the weight of the overlying rock layers removed, the nubbly tuff cracked into regular joints. The freeze-thawing action of water, prying action of plant roots, and the abrasive action of wind act in concert to shape a once-solid rock layer into today’s blocky sculptures.

City of Rocks is a popular recreation destination, attracting picnickers, campers, and other visitors. This fascinating area of rock sculptures has long attracted humans. When you visit City of Rocks, watch for pottery fragments, arrowheads, and grinding holes in the rocks left by earlier people. Of course, leave these artifacts untouched for others to see when visiting City of Rocks, a visible reminder of our area’s past.

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City of Rocks. Photo by Mark Erickson.

It catches you by surprise. Unseen from the state highway, down a two mile spur of blacktop, the City of Rocks State Park rises, suddenly, from a vast yellow plain of waving grama grass. The columnar, pastel stones make an uneven and disheveled skyline. Some tower as high as fifty feet. Others hunker to the earth like brooding trolls. In the interior of “the city,” the rocks meld and merge to form arches, curvaceous streets, and dark alleyways. Off to the side, isolated on the yellow plain, small groups of standing stone look like gentle giants – caught in a gossipy conversation.

Overall, the effect is weird and fantastical. This is a city of dreams, a city of particular delight to children and to adults who can still imagine and think as children do. This is the place to play games of enchantment, to clamor over warm boulders like a darting lizard, to run and hide and scheme in a geological playground that is relatively small but perfectly scaled.

At 5,000 feet, on the edge of the high Chihuahuan Desert, the park’s forty acres of jumbled rock are a product of volcanic activity followed by erosion.

Some thirty-three million years ago, volcanoes erupted in this area and spewed out fiery particles of rock. When the particles settled, they fused to form a layer that geologists call “kneeling nun rhyolite tuff.” (This odd term comes from a local landmark, Kneeling Nun, some miles to the north, in which an eroded pillar of volcanic tuff seems to “kneel” submissively just below a mountain peak.) As the solid layer cooled, it cracked and splintered. Rain, snow, frost, sun, and blasts of desert sand further eroded the material into their modern, compelling shapes. The tedious and seemingly invisible process of erosion can be seen today as scales of rock slip away from a tower’s fractured surface, leaving a smooth rounded hump of stone underneath.

The vertical inclines of this state park attract rockclimbers and boulder-ers. Hikers can wander up to the high rimrock that overlooks “the city” or walk the road leading to a panoramic view of the Mimbres Valley and fang of Cooke’s Peak. Photographers contort to catch the contortions of stone against a turquoise sky or the miracle of a scrub tree rising out of rock. Desert-lovers enjoy the cultivated botanical garden with its neatly-labeled species of cacti, both exotic and native.

All visitors appreciate the park’s arrangement of camping and picnic sites. Several dozen spots with tables and fireplaces are concealed among the labryinthian metropolis. (Firewood, however, is not available.) A 1.5 mile dirt road circles the main portion of eroded tuff, so that car and RV campers can drive slowly around the park before making their selection. These camping areas are nestled carefully amid the trees and rock walls and are rarely within sight of each other. Healthy Emory oaks shade many of the tables, and the nearby stone blocks out noise and creates a sense of privacy. Faucets and restrooms, placed along the dirt road, are all easily accessible. One restroom boasts the camping comfort of solar-heated water. Near the front entrance is a playground with swings and slides.

With little permanent water in the area, prehistoric Indians probably did not make these rocks a permanent home. There are, however, Mimbreno ruins in the surrounding area. And within the tuff itself are holes where seeds and nuts were ground over many years. In 1852, the explorer John Bartlett passed near the City of Rocks – and missed it completely. Instead he was greatly impressed by a few isolated stone pillars which he named the “Giants of the Mimbres.” A hundred years later, the City of Rocks State Park was created.

Where human visitors come and go, wild animals make their home. Packrats and chipmunks scurry over the rocks; ravens, hawks, and owls hunt from above. Antelope, deer, and coyote can be seen in the surrounding desert.

The City of Rocks State Park is twenty-seven miles northwest of Deming and thirty-one miles southeast of Silver City. Branching from US Highway 180, State Route 61 runs past the entrance to the park and on up the rural Mimbres Valley with its tree-lined river, apple orchards, and irrigated fields. The road continues north to the Gila National Forest and on toward the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.

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“Soiled Dove”. Photo courtesy Bill Kelly.

From the Ringo Kid’s girlfriend Claire in Stagecoach, through Miss Kitty in television’s Gunsmoke, to the waif-like Diane Lane in Lonesome Dove the prostitute has been among the more enduring images of the literary and cinematic West. She was called “soiled dove”, “shady lady”, “fallen woman,” “lost sister”, “saloon belle”, and a host of other appellations. She was quite simply the ubiquitous whore, and her portrait has been painted on many different canvases and in a generous and imaginative assortment of colors.

She was the fallen woman with a heart of gold, selfless to a fault and ready at a moment’s notice to do good for those in need. She was the woman with a heart of ice, ready to deceive, cheat, steal and murder for her lover, her husband or her pimp (often one and the same). She was the innocent waif forced into a degraded life by circumstances beyond her control and ultimately rescued from her degradation by a passing cowboy, lawman, miner, or prospector who fell in love with her and selflessly ignored her past.

She was the successful madam who ran a string of whores in a magnificent Victorian mansion on the edge of town and catered to the community’s well-to-do and “respectable” men. Or, conversely, she put her “girls” in a wagon and dragged them from mining camp to mining camp and often became wealthy in the bargain. She was, though not too often, a woman who found a vocation she liked and pursued it with gusto, enjoying both the hours and the remuneration. She was, in point of fact, what our mixture of fact and fantasy made of her. She was an almost perfect blend of myth, legend and history.

As the nineteenth century waned and the frontier passed, prostitution came under closer scrutiny from reform-minded individuals and institutions. In 1913 the American Federation for Sex Hygiene and the National Vigilance Association merged to form the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA), a blend of reformers and regulationists (the noun “activism” entered the English language shortly thereafter, in 1915). The essential division within the new organization was between the abolitionists who demanded eradication of what they considered to be a great social evil and the sanitarians who wanted to regulate the health of prostitutes in order to curb the spread of venereal disease.

The arguments within ASHA over prostitution soon made their way into the discourse of the general public, and on the eve of World War I the United States Army was faced with the question of what to do about the presence of prostitutes near Army installations. Officers within the Army itself were divided over the issue. Some insisted that hard work and regular exercise would curb the sexual appetites of the soldiers; others believed that men needed access to women if high morale was to be achieved and maintained. In the pre-World War I military action along the Mexican border triggered by Francisco Villa’s 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico, General John “Black Jack” Pershing came down on the side of regulation.

In Columbus, Pershing decided to permit regulated prostitution near Camp Furlong as long as the Army and representatives of the town cooperated to control the business. Troop morale and curbing the spread of VD were paramount in Pershing’s view, and by the end of July 1916 a district of several blocks had been established. The district was strictly segregated into white and black sections, and alcohol and firearms were forbidden. Existing whorehouses outside the district were closed, and owners were required to relocate within the district or get out of town. Prostitutes were to be inspected by civilian doctors, and those who were infected were forced to leave.

The mayor of Columbus, T.H. Dabney, (who was also a doctor) worked with a member of the Army Medical Corps to inspect the women once a week. The inspection fee of two dollars was split evenly between Dabney and the corpsman, providing a weekly income of about fifty dollars for each of the two men (a not insignificant sum in those days). The VD rate fell, but occasionally spiked when infected women freelanced in the local saloons before being discovered and expelled. Infected men coming from the countryside were another problem, and in time the base commander decided that infected men were to be treated the same as infected women: they were run out of town by the city marshal.

The women worked either in a house or in a “crib” next to or near a house. In a house each girl greeted her customer in a parlor or “sitting room”, and had either her own room or a shared room in which to entertain her clients. A crib was simply a hut, a shack or a lean-to providing a bit of shelter and privacy. Furniture in the crib was kept to a minimum: a cot, a straw-filled mat or a bedroll was the basic necessity along with a chair and a table to hold a lamp or candle. From detailed Army records we have a rather clear and certainly interesting picture of the “soiled doves” of Columbus. There were fifty recorded prostitutes, thirty-seven white and thirteen black, working in eight houses and a number of assorted cribs. The girls almost always went under a “sporting name” (”Mickey Doyle”, “Dixie Lee”, “Lovie Brown”, “Bobbie White”, “Babe Mularkey”), but willingly gave army inspectors their real names and backgrounds. Some had been “in the trade” or “on the line” for years before coming to Columbus, and others asserted that Columbus was their first experience with prostitution.

The most entrepreneurial of the housekeepers was Myrtle Mitchell. Myrtle, who claimed she was no longer on the line, ran six cribs and a house she leased from Jessie Van Cleave. Jessie had recently arrived from Tucumcari, New Mexico where she had worked as a waitress at the Glenrock Cafe and invested her savings in the house. She was described in the army records as “a large woman 5 ft. 6 in; 178 lbs; 30 years old; fat mushy face; fair complexion [sic] light brown hair; married to a soldier but quit him about 4 years ago, has a boy by first husband who died.” In addition to Myrtle and Jessie, the house was staffed by Katie Stone, AKA Katie Paterson and Jewell Woods, AKA Ruby Russell.

Nell Bowers, who claimed she was never a sporting woman before coming to Columbus from El Paso, ran a house with ten girls. The youngest, Anne Shelton, was twenty-two and had seven years “sporting”. She came to Columbus with her soldier husband who had married her out of a house in Galveston and continued “sporting” while living with him. The oldest, Nellie McCamant AKA Bessie, was thirty-five, and “was on line formerly for about 4 years, but married and quit the business, though she did some hustling while she was married, with knowledge of husband.” The others were in their twenties, and if the Army reports are correct they were experienced in the trade.

In what the Army called the “Negro District”, Mamie Williams managed a house with twelve prostitutes who ranged in age from twenty-two to thirty-two. In contrast to the white prostitutes, the black women apparently used no sporting names (if the Army records are correct). Only one, Audrey Taussig, claimed to have had no time in the sporting trade prior to coming to Columbus. Audrey’s husband was with Pershing’s troops in Mexico, and she decided that the “sporting life” was the best way to earn a living while he was gone. Most of the girls came from Texas, and there was one each from Pocatello, Idaho, Cincinnati, Ohio and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Even when controlled as it was in Columbus, the presence of prostitution presented a number of problems, not the least of which was the widespread use of alcohol and other drugs. The Army’s concern with prostitution was disease, which if not controlled could seriously hamper military efficiency. Liquor, on the other had, had the potential to create an environment unfavorable to good discipline. In the War Department’s Annual Report, 1916, the Surgeon General stated that “Alcohol and military efficiency have nothing in common.” With that thought in mind the Army first persuaded the Trustees of Columbus to limit the sale of alcohol to “near beer”, and then persuaded the village authorities to endorse a policy of total prohibition.

Prohibition in turn gave rise to illicit distillation and smuggling, and the Army and civil authorities were hard-pressed to control the problem. The border was patrolled and vehicles and trains were searched, but alcohol and drugs (opium and cocaine for the most part) still found their way to the whorehouses and cribs. The prostitutes found that alcohol enlivened their often-dreary lives and drugs made having sex with any man off the street bearable. Despite all the efforts of the Army and civil authority, prostitution, alcohol, and drugs formed a triad that was for all practical purposes unbreakable.

Prostitution for troops stationed in Columbus and for those encamped in Mexico was, in Pershing’s view, a necessary service in order to maintain an acceptable level of good morale. The great enemy of military discipline and morale is idleness among the troops, and it was the idleness of both garrison life along the border and encampment in Mexico that led men into alcohol and drug abuse. Prostitution as regulated in Columbus and in the encampments of the Punitive Expedition in Mexico provided no great challenge to the order and discipline so necessary to military units. Alcohol and drugs, however, continued to be a problem, as they both proved difficult to control.

With the return of the Punitive Expedition from Mexico in 1917 and the departure of National Guard troops as they were released from active duty, Columbus returned to a semblance of the normalcy it had enjoyed prior to Villa’s raid. Today it attracts snowbirds in the winter and tourists throughout the year, and the days of the Soiled Doves are gone. All that remains are the records in Army archives, the reminiscences of antiquarians, and the narratives of historians.

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The Railroad Depot Museum Photo courtesy Railroad Depot Museum.

What vision comes to mind when you hear the name Pancho Villa? Bandit, hero, valiant leader, ruthless tyrant? All of those names have been associated with him. He was not an easy man to define; it would depend on when you met him during his career. Here in Columbus, New Mexico, the same holds true. Some of our citizens have been told by their older relatives that he was a defender of the people. Others say he killed many of his countrymen in their villages.

Here in Columbus, we saw the results of his raid. Over 500 Villista’s attacked our town in the predawn hours of March 9, 1916. By the time the raid was over, one half the invaders were killed or wounded and 18 Americans were dead. This was the last time a foreign government invaded the Continental United States.

In retaliation for the raid, President Wilson formed a military group to attack and capture Pancho Villa under the leadership of General “Black Jack” Pershing. In the space of one week, Pershing not only drew up the logistical plan for the campaign, but actually had troops on the way to Columbus where he would march into Mexico. In a remarkably short time, the Punitive Expedition entered Mexico and tried to track Villa to his lair. With all the men, horses, mules and might of 10,000 troops, 11 months later our army had never once met up with Villa’s main force. They fought many small battles but never a big one. This was guerrilla warfare at its most effective. We were the foreign invaders. Everyone was against us even if they weren’t for Villa.

It was an educational time for our armed forces. This was the first time that Americans used mechanized vehicles in combat. This included cars and trucks (purchased on the open market) from auto dealers in El Paso and other locations. At that time, cars were not in general use; the drivers were given rudimentary instructions and told to drive. It wasn’t uncommon to hear the drivers shouting “giddy up” and “whoa” instead of pushing the proper pedals in the vehicles. The first armored vehicles were used here. They were the forerunners of tanks. Motorcycles also were used in combat conditions. They (and mules) often would have machine guns mounted as they rode into combat. As an interesting sidenote, the regular paths that people used to get from one village to another were too rough for our vehicles so the Army Corp of Engineers improved the road between Columbus and Casas Grande, Mexico.

This effort also included the first use of airplanes in combat conditions. Our entire air force (eight planes) was stationed in Columbus, a squadron of the signal corps. Up to this time, planes were used to carry messages. Here, since they were underpowered, they flew so low they would draw fire from people on the ground. In self-defense, they carried grenades as bombs and shot back at the ground troops. The planes were also used as observers for the first time; they located suspected enemies and carried the news back to the troops. It was an exciting time for the U.S. troops. More than twenty thousand troopers gained experience in combat conditions which proved to be of great value as the U.S. entered into the European theater the following year when they returned from Mexico.

What effect did this have on Columbus? While the troops were here, Columbus was the largest settlement in New Mexico. But when they left, it became smaller than before. Over the years the town dwindled in size until the trains stopped running in the 1950s. The population dropped to around 200 and the village was listed in many locations and guides as a ghost town. Now we are up to about the size of the village at the time of the raid, around 1700 people. We still maintain our rural character but with a surprise or two for the visitors to our area.

Our Railroad Depot Museum was the railroad depot at the time of the raid and was one of the principal targets. The Villistas wanted loot, money and goods to help finance their war against the Nationalist Army.  Shots were fired at the depot, which was closed for the night. The only real casualty was a wall clock that stopped when it was hit by a bullet and recorded the time of the start of the raid. The clock is currently being held in Santa Fe and will only return when we can guarantee its safety. The museum has an excellent collection of photos of scenes taken both in Columbus and throughout the area of the Punitive Expedition. Watch the videos that were made about Pancho Villa and his raid. Examine the artifacts of the soldiers stationed here and imagine spending a winter chasing after a bandit at high altitudes in the mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico. Look at the display of weapons that were used on both sides. We also have a copy of Pancho Villa’s death mask as well as one of his sombreros.

When you have had your fill of death and destruction, the other rooms in the depot will give you an idea of life on the frontier around the turn of the century. Costumes and implements fill the walls and display cases. We even have some railroad memorabilia. In May of 2000, a painting of our entire air force of early 1916 was unveiled in town. Three days later the painting was presented to the Pentagon in Washington, DC. We are proud to offer signed and numbered prints for sale.

Columbus is located three miles from the Mexican border and is the only crossing point in New Mexico that is open 24 hours a day. Many of the visitors to the museum are from across the border. When you visit, be sure to sign our guest book. Our phone number is 505-531-2620.

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A walk across the border for pan dulce

By Phyllis Eileen Banks

Pancho Villa Park in Columbus Photo by Joann Mazzio

When we first moved to New Mexico from Alaska, we explored some out-of-the-way places because we didn’t have that opportunity in Alaska. Out-of-the-way places there required an airplane. Columbus, New Mexico, population 700, intrigued us after we learned that three families from Alaska had built adjacent houses, complete with airstrip, in that remote desert community.

So what was there? It’s only three miles from the Mexican border, the air is clear, there are no traffic jams, and before World War II Columbus was the only place foreign forces had invaded the United States. In 1916, Pancho Villa and his bandits attacked, shooting out windows and looting stores, it is said. Now there is a park that was named for Pancho Villa, but only after much controversy. Since the consensus was that the villain receives the most attention, the name Pancho Villa triumphed.

We turned south from Interstate 10 at Deming onto New Mexico Highway 11, driving 32 miles, to check it out. Located on the site of the old Camp Furlong, the park is primarily a botanical garden consisting of southwestern desert plants. An interesting artifact is the first grease rack installed to service U. S. Army automotive equipment. The lube, oil and filter attendants of today would find it difficult to grease your car there in the few minutes they take now.

Pancho Villa

We found a visitors’ center, campground, and picnic tables in a very pleasant, uncrowded location. There is a documentary film at the center on Pancho’s raid for those who love history. After a short walk around town, we drove three miles to the border town of Las Palomas, parked on the U. S. side, and walked across into Mexico. You don’t need a visa or passport, just a voter’s registration card or other proof of citizenship.

I am a bread-a-holic and the fragrance from the bakery was alluring. It was fun to take a tray and tongs to make our selection. We bought far more than we needed, but who can resist such a bargain? Neither of us can, so we returned to the U. S. happily munching pan dulce, bread with just the right amount of sweetness. Now we’re ready for our next exploration in southwestern New Mexico.

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Deming, NM. Photo by Carla DeMarco.

Thirty miles north of the Mexican border, set against the backdrop of the Florida Mountains, rests Deming, New Mexico, an Old West outlaw and railroad town known for its pure water, prime rock-hounding and annual duck race.

Once a stage stop along the Butterfield Trail, Deming was founded in 1881 at the junction of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroad lines. Deming was named after Mary Deming Crocker, the wife of a Southern Pacific magnate. With a population of 14,200, it is the seat of Luna County.

Deming became an important military headquarters in World War I when troops were trained at Camp Cody and again during World War II when the Deming Army Air Base was used for training bombardiers.

Today’s Deming boasts a fast-growing economy fueled by agriculture, tourism – mostly in the form of snowbirds – industry, ranching and trade with Mexico. Luna County is known as the “Chile Capital of the World.” Its secondary crops are cotton, onions and sorghum.

At 4,335 feet, Deming enjoys a mild climate suitable for year-round activities such as golfing, rockhounding and swimming in its new Aquatic Center. Summer temperatures range from the 50’s to the 90’s while winter’s can drop to freezing or climb to the 60’s. The sun shines about 360 days a year.

Cultural amenities include the Deming Arts Council, Luna County Community Concerts, the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum, galleries and rock shops. Nearby attractions include Rockhound State Park, City of Rocks State Park, Gila Wilderness and the Cliff Dwellings, the Catwalk, Mogollon Ghost Town, Lake Roberts, Elephant Butte Lake, Shakespeare Ghost Town, Steins Ghost Town, Butterfield Trail loop tour, the Santa Rita Open Pit Copper Mine and Columbus, where Pancho Villa invaded the United States in 1916.

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Old Customs house in Columbus. Photo by Barbara Agte.

With a fascinating history, a 24-hour border crossing, a varied and unique geology, a New Mexico State Park, a museum, and a mild winter climate, Columbus is a New Mexican village which attracts visitors from the U.S., Asia, and Europe year after year.

Columbus has had an unusual and colorful history. The village was first established in 1891, just across the border from Palomas, Chih., Mexico. In 1902, when the El Paso/Santa Fe Railroad Line, connecting El Paso to the West, opened its Columbus station, the residents moved themselves and their village three miles north to the present location.

The site of the last foreign invasion into the U.S., Columbus was attacked in the early hours of March 9, 1916. Francisco (Pancho) Villa and his army of 500-1000 men on horseback, crossed the Mexico/U.S. border and burned the sleeping village. Reportedly, a total of 18 Columbus residents and members of the U.S. Army were killed. Over 100 of Villa’s men were found dead. A retaliation was led by General Jack Pershing, commanding U.S. Army Troops. The action was the first time airplanes and/or motorized vehicles were used in U.S. warfare. Pershing and his troops pursued the Mexicans far into Mexico, but Villa and his troops disappeared into the mountains.

Of particular interest to historians visiting Columbus are the Columbus Historical Museum, specializing in both Pancho Villa and railroad memorabilia, the old U.S. Customs House (a film on Villa can be viewed there), the site of Pershing’s Camp, and the airport site used by the First Aero Squadron. A replica of the plane used by the First Aero Squad is located on a concrete tower at Hacienda del Sur Air Park five miles north of Columbus. This replica is visible from Highway 11.

Lovers of the flora, fauna, and geology of the high Chihuahuan Desert will appreciate the Florida and Tres Hermanas Mountains, the open desert, and Pancho Villa State Park, home to every plant and animal native to the area. Depending upon the season, hummingbirds, snow geese, dove, quail, hawks, eagles, finches, rabbits, hares, and many types of lizards are plentiful. Chaparral, sage, and other desert herbs, plants, and wild flowers are abundant.

While Columbus is not in the mountains, it has ranges on all four sides. To the east and north of Columbus is the Florida Mountain range; to the west and north is the Tres Hermanas Range; south into Mexico is the Sierra de los Palomas, and to the north is Cooke’s Range.

The population of Columbus ranges from 700 in the summer to 1000+ in the winter. Special events are always scheduled in Columbus for March 9, “Raid Day” and for the second Saturday in October, for Columbus/ Pancho Villa Day.

Columbus is about 30 miles south of Deming on Highway 11 and just three miles north of Palomas, Chih., Mexico.

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