Elfego Baca

Silver was discovered in the Magdalena Mountains west of Socorro in 1867, creating growth in that army town. (Ft. Craig was 20 miles to the south.) By 1890, Socorro was the largest city in New Mexico. Reportedly 3,000 miners made it their home and their trading, gambling, and drinking center. Between thirty and forty saloons were built to accommodate their demands. It became evident before long that law and order were unknown qualities.

Enter Elfego Baca. Born in 1865, his arrival into the world was dramatic. His mother was pregnant at 19 and, so the story goes, was playing baseball. She jumped for the ball, came down with a thump, and “Elfego entered the ball game!”

His legendary fame was similar to that of Billy the Kid, except he was on the side of the law as sheriff, marshal, district attorney, school superintendent, and mayor. At age nineteen, he established his reputation as a quick draw with a deadly aim when he held 80 Texas cowboys at bay for thirty-six hours, killing four and wounding eight.

His goal in life was to be an A-1 peace officer. He wanted, he said, “the outlaws to hear my steps a block away.” After he became sheriff of Socorro County, indictments were handed down for the arrests of many of the county’s criminals. When his deputies began to arm themselves, Baca stopped their pursuit of lawbreakers. Instead, he sent a letter to each of the accused, saying, “I have a warrant here for your arrest. Please come in by March 15 and give yourself up. If you don’t, I’ll know you intend to resist arrest, and I will feel justified in shooting you on sight when I come after you.”

One by one, they arrived and laid down their guns.

Baca reportedly stole a gun from Pancho Villa, and Villa retaliated by offering a $30,000 reward for Baca, dead or alive. Baca did die in 1945 at the age of 80. In 1958, Walt Disney released a movie titled “Nine Lives of Elfego Baca.”

Socorro suffered reverses with silver losing its value. There were droughts and floods. The mines and smelter shut down as did the Crown Flour Mill. However, Socorro’s mining glory lives on in the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology that opened in 1893 under the name “New Mexico School of Mines.” The Magdalena Mountains, with the remaining shafts and tunnels of the mines, are its laboratory.

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Marsh Trail overlook. Photo by Leonard Padilla.

It is late winter, a Monday afternoon, in New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley. The temperature outside hovers at sixty degrees. For one person, the temptation to remove his coat and tie and play hooky from work is too compelling to resist. From Socorro, our adventurer drives south on New Mexico Highway 1 toward the entrancing and renowned Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge. He must, for obvious reasons, remain anonymous.

South of town, through and along desert hills, Highway 1 parallels Interstate 25 for five miles, then turns sharply over the interstate and winds down to the valley. The village of Luis Lopez is at the bottom of the hill. Another five miles further south is the more well-known village of San Antonio.

A short time later, eighteen miles from Socorro and just inside the Refuge boundary, an American kestrel perches on an overhead wire and surveys the scene. Just up the road, slicing through the air at about eye level, glides a red-tailed hawk. The Refuge headquarters and visitor center soon appear and, after paying $3.00 at an entrance station, the visitor takes the Marsh Road Loop. In the canal which parallels the road, a great blue heron preens itself. In the marshes, Canada geese, northern shovelers and buffleheads paddle lazily in small groups, some tipping over sporadically in search of food, scarcely taking notice. Down the road, snow geese line the top of a canal, providing contrasting foreground for the Chupadera Mountains.

Near the southern end of the loop, the entranced visitor’s vehicle stops at the parking area for the Marsh Overlook Trail. A blazing winter sun, on a downward arc in the bright blue sky, casts intriguing shadows of the hills and plants, beckoning the visitor to linger. Armed with an informational brochure available at the trailhead, he walks a circle around a marsh over a trail wide, level and smooth for most of its 1.5 mile length. One can easily imagine this a dance through mosquito alley during the warmer months, but today offers no problems. At the corner of the marsh, a trail spur climbs a small hill overlooking the Refuge. This refugee from work, armed with a camera and binoculars, is rewarded with outstanding views of the marshes and of the bosque beyond.

Marsh Trail overlook. Photo by Leonard Padilla.

At the bottom of the overlook, the trail around the marsh is blanketed in pleasing cool shadows. Suddenly the visitor stops in his tracks, halted by the familiar yet spooky sounds of a pack of yapping coyotes coming from an area of the trail just recently trod. The sound is so close he waits with wonder to see if the coyotes will emerge from the brush with an early dinner, but they are too wily to reveal themselves. The hiker continues, circling the marsh. SPLASH! The visitor’s intrusion startles a marsh resident. The visitor creeps closer to the marsh’s edge. Now visible is a muskrat that entered the water in self-defense. By now, it is time to return to the vehicle for a short drive to the fly-in.

The Marsh Loop Road intersects the Farm Loop Road and turns north. In a race with lengthening shadows now, the visitor still notes the colorful presence of a ring-necked pheasant. Sandhill cranes dominate the birdlife in this part of the Refuge in their numbers and size. The effects of a devastating fire that roared through the Refuge in 1996 are plainly visible, as are the restoration efforts by Refuge managers. At the north end of the loop road, the senses are assaulted by the sight and sound of thousands of snow geese, a blanket of white that covers an otherwise ordinary farm field.

Overhead, the fly-in is under way. More geese, some in a classic V formation, others in unruly flocks, make their way in from distant farm fields. Lesser in number, but quite distinctive, are sandhill cranes, with their pleasing warble adding to the cacophony of the geese.

Moments later, it happens. In unison, the geese lift off with a roar of flapping wings and loud honks, on their way to safety in their nightly marsh roosts. The sun is gone, but there is light enough for the snow-capped Magdalena Mountains to lend a dramatic flourish to the end of the day. Too soon, the fly-in is over. The Refuge is last seen through failing light and the dissipating fog of dust raised by passing vehicles.

The erstwhile visitor arrives back at his office, only to discover there are no messages on the answering machine, no faxes, no e-mail. He has not been missed. He hasn’t made up his mind whether that’s a good or a bad discovery.

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Socorro’s Downtown Plaza. Photo by Carla DeMarco

Socorro, a community of 9,000 in the sunny Rio Grande Valley, is the seat of Socorro County. While it is distinguished by history as one of the oldest settlements in the Southwest, its present and discernable future is based on the technology of tomorrow.

The name “Socorro” means “refuge” and dates back to 1598 when the people of the Pilabo Pueblo fed and sheltered weary members of the Juan de Onate expeditions that passed through on their way to establish a colony near Santa Fe.

The Spaniards built a church nearby which in 1627 was expanded into the San Miguel Mission. The present San Miguel Mission was built from 1819 to 1821 on the ruins of the earlier mission.

Socorro remained an agricultural center until the 1880’s when the Santa Fe Railroad arrived and extensive mining became possible. By 1886, when Socorro was incorporated, it had become the state’s largest town. By the 1890’s mining had declined and Socorro once again returned to is agricultural heritage. Many people moved away, leaving behind a legacy of Victorian homes.

In 1889 the New Mexico School of Mines (now called New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology) was established in Socorro. To this day, it remains one of the state’s leading centers for education and research. New Mexico Tech, as it’s called, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory may be the biggest reasons Socorro is home to one of the states’ highest percentages of Ph.D.s per capita.

In World War II Socorro benefited from atomic bomb testing at the nearby White Sands Missile Range. Today’s economy is still fed by such federal and state activities as the Very Large Array and Very Long Baseline Array radio telescopes which listen vigilantly skyward for intergalactic transmissions.

With its temperate climate and low rainfall, the Socorro area is well suited for outdoors explorations. Nearby, the Magdalena Mountains offer hiking, camping, fishing, hunting and rock climbing. The Gila National Forest is about two hours southwest. Skiing is as close as Albuquerque.

The Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge lies just 18 miles from Socorro. Here greater sandhill cranes and arctic geese winter among thousands of ducks and other birds. Over 325 species of reptiles and amphibians make the refuge their home or migrate through at different times of the year.

Socorro itself boasts the Macey Center where New Mexico Tech’s Performing Arts Series takes place. The Mineral Museum contains specimens from around the world. Parks, athletic fields, tennis courts, horse shoe pits, playgrounds, an 18-hole golf course and an Olympic size pool are available for recreational pleasure.

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