8/16/2023 0 Comments The cave san mateoWhile miners combed the mountains for mineral riches during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, stockmen drove tens of thousands of sheep and cattle to stockyards at the village of Magdalena, then linked by rail with Socorro. While some mining activity, involving gold, silver, and copper, occurred in the southern part of the range near the end of the nineteenth century, the prospecting/mining remnants are barely visible today due to collapse, topographic screening, and vegetation regrowth. It wasn't until this time that extensive use of the area by non-Native Americans occurred. īutch Cassidy poses in the Wild Bunch group photo, Fort Worth, Texas, 1901.Ī mining rush followed the Apache wars – gold, silver, and copper were found in the mountains. We know this by an essay written by Aldo Leopold in 1919 where he documents stumbling upon the remains of a recently abandoned Indian hunting camp. Native Americans lingered in the San Mateos well into the 1900s. Stories of depredations by the Apache Kid, and of his demise, became so common and dramatic that in southwestern folklore they may be exceeded only by tales of lost Spanish gold. Perhaps most famous outlaw was the Apache Kid whose supposed grave lies within the Apache Kid Wilderness. Vic's Peak was named after Victorio, "a Mimbreño Apache leader whose territory included much of the south and southwest New Mexico." Famous for defying relocation orders in 1879 and leading his warriors "on a two-year reign of terror before he was killed," Victorio is at least as highly regarded as Geronimo or Cochise among Apaches. Outlaw renegades Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch and notorious Apaches like Cochise and Geronimo have ties to the San Mateos. Bands of Apache effectively controlled the Magdalena-Datil region from the seventeenth century until they were defeated in the Apache Wars in the late nineteenth century. Much of the now Magdalena Ranger District were a province of the Apache. Evidence for human use of district lands date back 14,000 years to the Paleoindian period providing glimpses into the peopling of the New World and megafaunal extinction." Basham noted in his report documenting the archeological history of the Cibola's Magdalena Ranger District that "he heritage resources on the district are diverse and representative of nearly every prominent human evolutionary event known to anthropology. The history of the San Mateo Mountains is intimately linked with the rich history of the surrounding area. They also form the eastern border of the Plains of San Agustin, site of the world-renowned Very Large Array. They form part of the western edge of the Rio Grande Rift Valley. The San Mateo Mountains are a fault-block range, made of volcanic rock from the Datil-Mogollon Volcanic Field, of age between twenty-eight and twenty-four million years. There are three Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRA) within the San Mateos: the Apache Kid Contiguous IRA (67,570 acres), the San Jose IRA (16,957 acres), and the White Cap IRA (8,039).Ī view from the San Mateo Mountains. There are two designated wilderness areas in the range, the Apache Kid Wilderness 44,650 acres (181 km 2) and the Withington Wilderness 18,869 acres (76 km 2). Most of the San Mateo Mountains are within the Magdalena Ranger District of the Cibola National Forest. They should not be confused with the identically named range in Cibola and McKinley counties, north of this range. It lies about 25 miles (40 km) north-northwest of the town of Truth or Consequences and about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Socorro. The range runs roughly north-south and is about 40 miles (64 km) long. The highest point in the range is West Blue Mountain, at 10,336 ft (3,151 m). The San Mateo Mountains are a mountain range in Socorro County, in west-central New Mexico in the southwestern United States. The map also indicates the locations of Inventoried Roadless Areas. A map of the San Mateo Mountains showing the Apache Kid and Withington Wilderness Areas.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |