February 10, 2024 • 46 mins
Step into New Mexico's treacherous Jornada del Muerto with our latest installment of "The Enchantment Chronicles." Unravel the motives propelling Spanish settlers to navigate this formidable desert, eschewing the Rio Grande's waters and Apache skirmishes in a bid to reach Santa Fe. We also recount the harrowing saga of Bernardo Gruber, the German whose tragic encounter with the Spanish Inquisition led to his desperate final flight into the unforgiving Jornada. We explore how Captain Jack Martin's post-Civil War discovery kept sustained a small community on the Jornada ponder the complex legacy of land magnate Ted Turner, and briefly discuss (once again) the atomic echoes of the Trinity site. The narrative comes full circle at the Salinas Pueblo missions, where the persistence of indigenous cultures amidst European influence unveils a history rich with the interplay of conquest, trade, and survival. Join us as we piece together the intricate mosaic that is New Mexico's storied past.
Links and Resources:
https://bacafamily.org/jornada-del-muerto/
https://www.prestonchild.com/books/mountdragon/JORNADA-DEL-MUERTO-Retracing-the-Dead-Man-s-Journey;art44,40
https://genealogytrails.com/newmex/sierra/history_aleman.html
https://socorro-history.org/HISTORY/PH_History/200905_armendaris.pdf
https://www.nps.gov/elca/planyourvisit/jornada-del-muerto.htm
https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/resources/water/projects/bwa/JornadaDelMuerto/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the enchantment chronicles.
We are the men of enchantment,and today we're gonna talk about
la jornada de mato.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The journey of the dead man, sorry.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I was gonna ask you drew.
Do you know Spanish well enoughto Translate?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, yeah, yeah, I guess I do.
I know that much.
I don't know a lot of Spanish,but uh, I've been at some of the
jornada sites.
Um, yeah, it's uh prettybleakly named and it could be
named after A couple of deadguys that we could discuss right
.
(00:55):
Probably more than two, that'sfor sure, yeah yeah, uh, it was
that section of the what becamethe Camino Al the, the royal
road up from Mexico City all theway up to Santa Fe, new Mexico.
Um, it was just A brutal,brutal section.
(01:18):
Why?
Why would they go through thedesert?
Why would they leave thecomforts of the Rio Grande?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, we're gonna talk about that and let's just
First off, for those who don'tknow, the hornata del marto.
Obviously it means the journeyof the dead man, um, but the
location it is Approximately um120 miles long, 150 miles long,
(01:49):
um, and about 20 to 30, 40 mileswide.
It is in between Um, the on sanandres mountains and the Fra
Cristobal Range and the Gabao.
Mountains and um To the northernpart is the where the trinity
site is, and on the southernpart is Just north of Los Cruces
(02:12):
.
What is now Los Cruces?
What was then?
Nothing when it first started,but now um it was Doniana and
drew, there's a I-25 checkpoint,checkpoint board patrol
checkpoint on I-25, and justsouth of that there's a rest
stop and supposedly at leastthat's what the historical
(02:34):
marker says that's where thefirst Spanish settlers Uh camped
before they went into the range, and it's north from there and
Approximately where it's ex,where the exit is approximately
near Secorro, which means helpin Spanish.
Yeah, so this place had nowater when the Spanish were
(02:59):
coming through, but that wasn'talways the case.
When the Spanish came through,there was no water and the
reason why they went that waywas because they could not, or
it was at least much moredifficult to go through.
Uh, what is now T or C?
And wrap around the river withoxen and yeah, wheels and etc.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, I'm struck by the the maps that we have.
We have one from, uh, this, the1758 uh banado de mierra
ipecheco's map from the palaceof the governors and, and you
can see, they kind of thoughtthe Rio Grande bent a little
more dramatic than it reallydoes.
(03:43):
But Right, right there wheretoday, um, the canyons have been
filled in by elephant buttelake and uh, um, and by the dams
there, uh, that travel got waytoo rugged through those canyons
along the Rio Grande, um, sothey they kind of had to leave
(04:05):
the banks of the river wherethere was this Ready water
supply, and they had to passthrough those planes, through
the desert and it was brutal.
And, and you mentioned tojohnny that down at the Geronimo
Springs Museum in T or C, theyhave another explanation for why
(04:26):
, even without the the danger oftrying to get carts and Oxen
through those cliffs and canyons, there was another danger out
there at T or C, right, johnny?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
uh, yeah, it was.
It was a difficult uh journey,to say the least, but, um, when
the Spanish came through, atleast, um, hot springs, or what
is now T or C, is where theapaches would come down from the
Gila and come down frommescalero and and all meet up
(05:03):
and um.
For the Spanish, at least, itwas by passing that area, um to
give them a little bit morepeace, um, from from the natives
who would, who knew the regionbetter than the spanish
spaniards at the time.
Yeah yeah, so so, but beforethat, um, it wasn't always so
(05:27):
dry, mm-hmm.
Now, if you go out in there andand another thing to to know,
or the another another locationnow is space port.
Space port america is at thesouthern port portion of this,
um, ironically enough, uh,hornata de mordo, um, I don't
(05:50):
know what that means In the longrun, but space port america is
essentially the entry point ofthe, uh, the hornata de mordo
journey.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, but it's a nice empty.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Nice empty desert is a good place to test Missiles or
launch rockets.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
That's why I drop atomic bombs.
Yes.
Yeah, so nobody lives out there.
Uh, very few animals live outthere.
There's very little water outthere.
Now it is Hot beyond belief andI don't know if you've ever
been out there drew.
But I went out there, I don'tknow, three or four or five
years ago and it was the firsttime in a long time where I was
(06:35):
looking at my gas tank andsaying I I don't know if I want
to risk this journey withoutsufficient gas and water.
It was in the middle of thesummer and it was.
It was quite hot, 110, 115degrees.
Oh, when I was out there, um,but it wasn't always so dry and
and way back in the day, um,there were lots of uh native,
(07:00):
native, um indigenous peopleswho inhabited the region.
Um, there was evidence to thenorth of the hornata, down there
, near uh, near what is thetrinity site and kind of
kerososo region up north, wherethe the uh malpice, the volcanic
(07:20):
Remnants of the volcano thathas come through.
There's evidence of nativepeople 10 000 years ago, 11 000
years ago, 9 000 bce um.
But some reason, for some reasonthey took off and they think it
was a lot wetter, and then itstarted to dry up.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, the same kind of phenomenon that probably had
that lake where we talked aboutthe footprints from 20,000 years
ago near White Sands.
Similar topography, similargeography, and when it was water
it would have been a lot easierto live there.
So we found our oldest evidenceof human habitation in North
(08:12):
America currently is not farfrom there.
It's where some kids wereplaying and getting picked up
and carried by some adults alonga lake that dried up long since
, but that's why we have thegypsum at White Sands.
You know all that lake bedgypsum that's become the sand
(08:36):
now that has formed one of ournational parks here in New
Mexico.
All right, well, Onyate bravedthis journey what and on his
first trip north in 15,000 years92, 94, something like that.
(09:00):
I think he went up in.
Didn't he go up in 98?
Late 1500s.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Let's go with that 1590.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
But in any event, he brought the first European
livestock on that journey wetalked about in the last episode
.
Prior to that, it was prettymuch just what turkeys and dogs
were the domesticated animals ofthe native people here and he
(09:40):
brought pigs and oxen and horsesinto our back here.
They'd been here.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
If I remember correctly and from our last
podcast about Onyate, he broughtsomething like what four, five,
six thousand head of animals,herd of cattle and sheep and all
sorts of different things hebrought them in.
So they must have braved thehornata del marto all together
(10:09):
at that time, I would presume.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he did finally make it in 1598.
He came through.
But in 1599, we have our firstcandidate for a named dead man.
Certainly there are someestimates from the hornata that
(10:33):
there might have been agravesite every couple of miles
along there.
But in 1599, his cousin FráCristobal de Salazar, tried to
head back to Mexico City and didnot make it.
(10:56):
So that mountain range becamenamed after.
I don't know if we say Frá Fré,fré Frá Cristobal, some people
say it looks like it looks likethe priests, but certainly
(11:18):
that's that Onyate named thatparticular range which forms
that boundary of the hornataAfter our cousin.
They did not survive his firstexpedition, didn't make it back
to Mexico City alive.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Not the first and not the last, I presume.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
No, no, but obviously they did make it up.
And the rest of them Onyate didbecome New Mexico's first
European governor colonized, aswe talked about.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
But this route, even though Onyate was the first one,
who did it?
First European, supposedly, whodid it?
This became a very importantsegment of the trade route
between Mexico City and Santa Fe.
The last outpost of Mexico orSpain at the time of the hornata
(12:38):
de Muerte, became the mostcrucial segment of the trade
route and the Camino Real.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Right, and even today .
I mean, I've been near thereand we've seen javelinas, the
wild pig descendants and theirperiodic wild horse, I guess
cullings or gatherings from theWhite Sands missile range,
(13:10):
because that whole ecosystem isprofoundly affected by the fact
that pigs were driven down thetrails.
Horse sheep were brought downthose trails to Mexico City.
That was one of the earliestforms of livelihood up here was
people would raise sheep andbring their pigs back down to
(13:36):
Mexico and sell them and thencome back with whatever
manufactured grids they couldget from down there.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, before the Spanish, before the Spaniards
came, there was still arelatively extensive trade
network between New Mexicans, orthe indigenous people of what
is now New Mexico and southernMexico.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, we'll probably do a whole episode later on
Chaco, but in the intestinalPueblo and Chaco had feathers
parrot feathers from all the waydown in Mexico City they had
shells from the Pacific Oceanand even copper from the Great
Lakes region, so there weretrade routes that connected
(14:26):
everywhere.
These European explorers areoften really just traveling
paths that have had many feettrotting them for millennia up
until then.
And again that kind of pictureyou're kind of picturing,
cutting off it around hatch andcutting across the desert,
(14:53):
passing behind those mountains,right by Elephant Butte Lake and
Caballo now, and going upthrough those plains all the way
up north and I guess our nextcandidate should we talk about
our next candidate for the deadman?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
It's a cool story.
You know it best, so go for it.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Okay, yeah, so this is from a national monument, the
Salinas Pueblo missionsnational monument, a little
south of Albuquerque, down nearmountain.
There there are three missionsbuilt there and at that time the
(15:37):
Spanish were.
You know, they're named theSalinas missions because there's
salt that you can gather.
But at the time the Inquisitionwas pretty active here.
So there was a man named ElAlaman, the German, and he was
(16:00):
arrested by the office of theHoly Inquisition and you know as
he what's the Manipata insketch.
No one expects the SpanishInquisition Well, no one
expected the Inquisition to beso powerful up here.
But they had a serious tension.
They had arguments withgovernors and even arranged to
(16:24):
have a couple of early governorsarrested and tried.
But the German was unfortunate.
He was selling trinkets.
He snuck into the choir loftwhere the Pueblons were singing
for Sunday services and he wasselling some trinkets.
(16:44):
So it's kind of hard to imaginewhat they were exactly.
In one account they might havebeen pieces of paper that they
could swallow and they would beprotected from harm.
It's kind of strange to imaginea German coming out here.
But New Mexico was the end ofthe world, you know.
(17:06):
It was maybe where a lot ofpeople came for refuge from that
very same Spanish Inquisitionor from others, but he wound up
getting arrested for two yearsin the early 1700s.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And let's see what was his name.
Gruber was his name and theGerman Bernardo Gruber.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, so presumably he was born Graphnag or
something, but he was arrested.
Let's see.
When did he get?
He was arrested.
According to the National ParkService and the local author,
(18:01):
douglas Preston, he was arrestedin 1670, but there's some
tension about whether they havethe authority to arrest him and
he wind up just kind of sittingin prison there for a couple of
years in a jail cell waiting toget sent back to Mexico for a
(18:24):
trial.
And there's a couple of namesAtencio, atenacio but he had an
Apache companion servant maybe,who eventually gets tired of
(18:47):
waiting for Gruber to get out,so he breaks him out of jail and
they take off the Apache again.
Atenacio, atencio.
He took a horse and a harkabusand they headed out into the
(19:11):
Honaro.
The German El Alamán was a guynamed Bernardo Gruber presumably
Bernardo Gruber, and this is astory from the Salinas Pueblo
missions, just near Mount Nair,a little south of Albuquerque,
(19:33):
those national monuments wherethe Spanish had established
three missions named after thesalt they were using or trading
in.
But they had indigenous laborbuild these big churches.
And Gruber snuck into a choirloft where the Puebloans were
(19:59):
singing and was selling somecharms.
They might have been pieces ofpaper that he was saying, get
swallowed and they would protectyou from harm.
And he winds up running afoulof the Inquisition which even up
here, the very end of theSpanish Empire, was a threat.
(20:20):
They had tensions with some ofour governors.
They arrested a couplegovernors.
They arrest Gruber in 1670, butbecause there was disputes
about whether they have theauthority to do so, he just
languishes.
He's sitting there in a jailcell for over a year before his
(20:41):
Apache companion, sometimesnamed Atenacio, sometimes
Atencio, but a Apache companionor a servant or a friend, gets
tired of waiting for him, so hebreaks him out of jail.
But unfortunately Gruber hadbeen in a small cell for a while
(21:02):
and they head out across theHonada with a horse and a
harkabas and they flee trying toescape the office of the
Inquisition.
But the accounts kind of differfrom there.
There's one account where youcan see there's a claim that his
(21:27):
servant killed him, which makesno sense to me, because why
would he rescue him to take himout into the desert to kill him?
He could have left him there.
But the more realistic storyand the more common story is
that Gruber, who's not beengetting exercise and is not
(21:49):
presumably in great physicalshape, it kind of collapses and
asks Atenacio to go ahead andfind water.
But I guess they had two horses, because Gruber had a horse too
.
But Atenacio does leave and insome accounts Atenacio's gore.
(22:15):
He finds water and is trying tocarry it back.
It falls and breaks so he hasto head back and soak a saddle
blanket and try to get back tothe German.
But by the time he gets backGruber had possibly panicked,
possibly succumbed to someravings and wandered off.
(22:41):
A search party wouldn't findhim, but a few weeks later they
found a dead horse tied to atree and a doublet lined with
otter skin which had belonged toEl Alamon and scattered around
found several ribs, some chewedbones and a massive hair.
(23:02):
So they gathered up what theycould find, took it back to
Senefe After setting up ourcross at the spot which became
known as La Cruz de Alamon andlater Alamon New.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Mexico.
And if you go east of Tiersienow today you cross the Elephant
Butte dam and you go east andyou head through that little
mountain range, there is ahistorical marker that
(23:42):
supposedly is approximatelywhere he was found or died or
something along those lines,heading out towards Engle and
Alamon, new Mexico.
Yeah.
Which maybe four or five, sixpeople live in those communities
combined.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, they're pretty empty places out there, so I
guess whatever happened to hisquote unquote assistant.
Well, he apparently lived, Imean he made it through and
(24:21):
continued his life from thereand kind of passes into history.
But he certainly doesn't everreally face justice for breaking
the German out, which isprobably good.
You know, presumably, like yousaid, johnny, if he's from the
(24:48):
Apache people from that region,he would have known a lot more
about that area than anyone elseand probably, you know it would
have been hard for anybody tokeep up with a guy that could
travel and communicate inSpanish and indeed indigenous
languages there.
So he kind of passes intoobscurity.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
So we have the Spaniards in the late 1600s
traveling up and down and theCamino Real was very important,
at least for the Spaniards, andlater Mexico, because that was
the only trade route fornorthern New Mexico and until,
obviously, the Santa Fe Trail in1821.
(25:32):
So that was the only way forfolks to get any information
from the old world, if you will,for a long time and, drew, if
you know of anything about theSpanish Inquisition in northern
New Mexico, there's a reallygood book about the Sephardic
Jews colonizing or whatever theterm would be establishing
(25:58):
themselves in northern NewMexico.
There's a book called, I think,to the ends of the earth.
That's really fascinating aboutthe measures that people
undertook to escape the SpanishInquisition.
It was less fair than itprobably should have been, to
say it nicely.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I haven't read that book, but I
do know that.
You know, we always hear 1492is the year of Columbus, but
it's also the year that the Kingof Castile and Etihad unites
Spain and one of the firstorders that Queen Isabella and
(26:41):
King Ferdinand put out is allJews, all Muslims, must convert
or go into exile or faceexecution.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So convert or die yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
So a lot of people kind of chose that third path
get as far away from the, theholy Inquisition, as they could
and some of them did wind upcoming out here, so kind of
continued to practice.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Right.
This route was used forhundreds of years, I guess, and,
and, and.
Eventually, as we know ourhistory, spanish were overthrown
in 1821 by the, the MexicanRepublic and I, but I presume
the Camino Real was lessimportant, but maybe it was
(27:42):
still important, I'm not sure,but it was until 18.
What was the Mexican-AmericanWar?
1848, 1848, yeah, 1846, 1848,when the United States took over
this region assumedjurisdiction, yeah, of this
region and and very closethereafter, the Civil War took
(28:07):
place and drew, I don't know ifyou know the Battle of Valverde
and the first battle.
If you maybe not the firstbattle, but that battle near
Fort Craig is also out there onthe Hornada, essentially the
Hornada del Muerto, the northernportion of the Hornada del
(28:28):
Muerto.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
That's the.
That's the site where theConfederates actually won right.
They defeated a force partiallyled by Kit Carson and and
continued north until eventuallythey would meet their, their,
their match, but Pecos andGloria right exactly and and
(28:54):
even though they won, you know,some would say they lost because
they didn't cover.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
They didn't capture Fort Craig, but the the, the
Confederates under GeneralSibley, went that route.
As far as I know, I could bewrong, but I think I think they
went that route north fromMessia where Colonel Baylor was
and they went that route and,shockingly, were really thirsty
(29:23):
and hungry after that thatjourney and then they were not
able to capture Fort Craig andin lieu of okay, wasting energy
or whatever, they took off northand went went into Albuquerque
to prepare for the Battle ofGloriata Pass.
Yeah, so some folks stayedbehind the, the Unionists stayed
(29:47):
behind and and kept Fort Craig.
Fort Craig was very wellpositioned at the time and had
very well had a lot of resourcesfor folks in that area.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
All right, and we know they, the Confederates, did
take wagon trains across thatHuarnada, because eventually,
that's that's how we, theColorado and New Mexico
volunteers, managed to defeatthem.
They so some people still claimthat, gloriata, more Union
troops were killed thanConfederates, but meanwhile some
(30:27):
of the Union forces droppeddown behind the Confederate
lines and burned their wagons,and so at that point there was
no longer an option to maintainany kind of invading force, and
that closed the the chapter ofthe Civil War, and what was a?
General Sibley and his forcesretreated back to Texas, thank
(30:48):
God.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, although some would argue they should have
finished them off before theygot to Texas.
But so after the Civil War,after the United States took
possession of that, of course,the United Statesians started to
move in and I don't know ifyou've heard of this story, drew
(31:09):
, but have you heard of thestory of Jack Martins well?
No, no.
So Jack Martins, well, it was awell in the southern portion of
and it's not in our outlinehere, but Jack Martins well was,
(31:30):
you know, prior to the Spanish.
It used to be a little bitwetter up there and or down
there where we're looking, andthere was a well or an area
called Ojo de Muerto.
It used to be reliable duringthe Spanish times, but that
dried up, and so folks nearAlamon or Engel, down there,
(31:54):
they needed, they needed waterto make that journey.
They were still using theHornado de Muerto post Civil War
as a trade route or as atraveling route, rather, and
there's a guy, I believe hisname is Jack Martin, who dug a
well and he I can't rememberwhere I've read this or seen
(32:19):
this, but he dug a well and hedropped all sorts of money and
it was his claim to fame, Iguess.
But on the last day where hewas about to give up they were
about to give up digging thewell they hit water and boom it
was, they discovered water andthey were able to continue that
(32:41):
traveling through that routebecause of that well, stop for a
long time thereafter.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Okay, yeah, I'm looking it up and from Sierra
County they're saying 1868 waswhen he dug that well.
And the well is still pumping,is it?
Well?
I don't know when this post wascreated I'd have to but this is
(33:12):
from a site called MIMS Memoryand from the Sierra County
Centennial Video Series, sopresumably that might have been
a little while ago, butSpaceport America was already in
existence and it was still inuse.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
so Okay, Captain Nut.
Yes, Jack Martin's well,Captain Jack Martin.
Jack Martin was a officer inthe Union Army.
He came out with the Californiacolumn, came out to New Mexico
Territory in 1862 with theCalifornia column.
Okay who?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
They were coming to help in the Civil War right.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
They were, they were up to try to track down.
Generally, simply, they came alittle bit too late.
But those folks ColonelFountain is the famous one, came
out with the California columnmostly stayed in southern New
Mexico and Captain Jack or JohnMartin dug this well.
So for a long time people stilltraveled that way, until the
(34:21):
roads, until the automobile wereable to carve out and heavy
machinery were able to carve outbetter trade routes or better
roads.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
In the early 1900s, and today, as we mentioned, that
well continued pumping at leastup until the Spaceport of
America era.
So I don't know if that's stillworking, but you have here that
Ted Turner has come to thatpart of the world.
(34:56):
He's the largest, isn't he thelargest ranch holder here in New
Mexico.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I believe he's the largest private landowner in New
Mexico and his land down there.
I believe there's a couple ofthem, but the ranch is now known
as the Armandaris Ranch orArmandadis Ranch, and that's a
fascinating story aboutsuccession and claims and
(35:22):
stealing consolidation theArmandaris people family.
But in long story short, tedTurner has purchased that land.
So if you head out east and youhit the Engle head out east
from TLC, there is a big signand I can't tell you how many
acres, but we're talkingthousands of acres, if not
(35:46):
hundreds of thousands of acresof land down there that Ted
Turner or whomever owns TedTurner's ranch is now.
I believe around 1990, 1994,something like that, he
purchased most of that land forabout $14, $50 million or
(36:12):
something crazy, but it lookslike.
Ted Turner owns around there istrying to find the exact
acreage, but 358,643 acres fortwo thirds of the original
Armandaris Grant Ted.
(36:34):
Turner owns it's just absolutelyenormous and it runs from the
southern boundary of the Bosquede la Pache to through the
historic towns of Tiffany,valverde, la Mesa, south of
Engle, which is approximatelySpace Force America, and the
(36:56):
widest point of this ranch is 23miles east to west.
Absolutely massive landholdingsdown there.
53 miles of the Rio Grandeflows through the ranch.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh my God.
Yeah, I'm looking at this siteyou've posted and, yeah, it
covers both sides.
Fort Craig that you justmentioned is right next to there
and I guess Armandaris was partof the.
He was granted it right Rightbefore Mexico won independence
(37:32):
from Spain in 1819, but he waspart of the contingent that
arrested Zebulon Pike of PikesPeak.
That's right For scouting andhe's for scouting out the
interior lands of the Spanish.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Allegedly.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, allegedly, but he certainly was arrested.
But he was working for alieutenant who became the
governor of New Mexico andgranted him this very extensive
(38:13):
land that he mentioned, thegrant number 33, the grant
number 34.
So vast tracts, some of whichwas privately held by him, I
guess Merced, and some of whichwas like a community land grant.
(38:34):
But his holdings would havebeen huge, absolutely huge and
he kept consolidating.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I believe his son or his nephew, whomever assumed
that, kept consolidating andkept taking stealing whatever
the word may be to grow itlarger and larger.
But one thing I do want to talkabout before Ted Turner
post-Civil War, before TedTurner buying this stuff, is the
(39:04):
Trinity site, which lies on thenorthern part of the Hornada
and that was the first atomicbomb detonated detonation site
July 16, 1945.
(39:25):
And we all know Oppenheimer'swords Now I am become death, the
destroyer of worlds.
That I think he said when thatfirst bomb was dropped, or maybe
it was after that.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, I actually learned this.
He may have thought it, but hesaid it in an interview years
later, so he wasn't.
But he was saying in hisinterview.
He was saying he was recallingthat passage, that passage from
the Gotcha, from Hindu scripture.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
So probably what he's done.
Not so ironic, given theHornada del Muerto, the whole
history of the region it is.
It fits in line with theHornada del Muerto.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, and you have a couple of preservation notes.
We've already mentioned that,the national monuments at Kodai
and Abo and the Salinas Pueblomissions there.
They're interesting places togo Because you can certainly see
(40:37):
the Kiva practices beingpracticed right next to the
churches that they're building.
So the indigenous religion waspreserved in a form there.
One of the Kivas is actuallyrectangular, which may or may
not have been a Europeaninfluence.
I guess those occasionally showup.
(41:02):
Most Kivas were round, butthat's of course the underground
ceremonial site, that kind ofwhere the Pueblans honored their
ancestors, many of whom had dugpit houses originally.
But you mentioned the point ofrocks trail too, johnny.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, there are a couple.
If you really want to get outthere and explore this on your
own, there's a couple differenttrails the point of rocks trail,
which is a half mile loop thatstarts at the ends at the top of
a rock outcrop that was alandmark for travelers on the
Camino Real Point of rocks.
(41:49):
This area informed or signifiedto travelers that water was
only 10 miles away from thatlocation.
So you can get to it from acouple different ways but I-25,
you exit 79 and head east forabout 30 miles and you're out in
(42:14):
the middle of nowhere.
But it's a pretty cool littletrail.
If you want to see what it waslike way back in the day, that's
one that you can go check out.
There's another one called theYoast Excarpment Trail, which is
part of the original trailsection, I believe, of the we're
not at El Merto.
(42:35):
It's about a mile and a halflong.
It ends at the top of anexcarpment which is a steep
rocky slope.
That quote was a true test forthe caravans with huge freight
wagons, according to the NPS.
And you get there from I-25,exit 79 and head east on 51 for
(42:57):
about 17 miles or, excuse me,then you get to up in Marode and
then you head south 17 miles.
We're talking in the middle ofnowhere.
If you do go out there, makesure you have lots of gasoline
in your vehicle.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Or charge these days.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Or charge, but I can assure you there are zero
charging stations out there.
I believe that.
I believe that.
So I wouldn't take an electricvehicle, just in case.
Don't go during the summertime,probably don't go during the
wintertime and if you go, takelots of water, just in case.
Last time I went a few yearsago my cell phone didn't even
work, which now it works almostanywhere, but it wasn't working
(43:40):
out there and it's kind ofdesolate.
It's really quite remarkable.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
But and we do have links to these directions.
You don't have to memorize theroutes, but everyone's always
welcome to download a podcastbefore they go in, because you
probably won't have a lot oflistening choices if you travel
(44:09):
out there.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Anyway, that's all I got drew the Hornada del Muerto.
I'm sure there's stuff wemissed, and so if y'all, if
anybody listening, wants to sendin a message or an email us or
something, you can find that onour website and we'll put that
in the links how to contact usthrough our social media.
But the Hornada del Muerto isone of the most historically
(44:38):
significant locations in theUnited States, in my opinion,
that folks don't really knowabout.
And one thing that I did forget, that we will bring up at some
point drew, is Victoria's Peak,which is also in the Hornada del
Muerto.
But there's so much historydown there, so much going on
(45:00):
without realizing it.
There's a lot that has gone ondown there.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Absolutely, absolutely and again, safe
travels to everyone if they dotravel through there.
And yeah, it was the mostperilous part of what some
people say is the most importantof the three Western trails for
a long time you know thatOregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail
(45:30):
and the Camino Real are allconsidered some of those
important passages from beforethe railroads came through, but
from much of our history thatwas the most important of the
three.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
All right On.
Thanks everybody for listening.
Right Until next time, pleasevisit our website
enchantmentchroniclescom and anyof our social media.
But until next time, safetravels.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Adios, adios.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Adios.
Welcome to the enchantment chronicles.
We are the men of enchantment,and today we're gonna talk about
la jornada de mato.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The journey of the dead man, sorry.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I was gonna ask you drew.
Do you know Spanish well enoughto Translate?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, yeah, yeah, I guess I do.
I know that much.
I don't know a lot of Spanish,but uh, I've been at some of the
jornada sites.
Um, yeah, it's uh prettybleakly named and it could be
named after A couple of deadguys that we could discuss right
.
(00:55):
Probably more than two, that'sfor sure, yeah yeah, uh, it was
that section of the what becamethe Camino Al the, the royal
road up from Mexico City all theway up to Santa Fe, new Mexico.
Um, it was just A brutal,brutal section.
(01:18):
Why?
Why would they go through thedesert?
Why would they leave thecomforts of the Rio Grande?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, we're gonna talk about that and let's just
First off, for those who don'tknow, the hornata del marto.
Obviously it means the journeyof the dead man, um, but the
location it is Approximately um120 miles long, 150 miles long,
(01:49):
um, and about 20 to 30, 40 mileswide.
It is in between Um, the on sanandres mountains and the Fra
Cristobal Range and the Gabao.
Mountains and um To the northernpart is the where the trinity
site is, and on the southernpart is Just north of Los Cruces
(02:12):
.
What is now Los Cruces?
What was then?
Nothing when it first started,but now um it was Doniana and
drew, there's a I-25 checkpoint,checkpoint board patrol
checkpoint on I-25, and justsouth of that there's a rest
stop and supposedly at leastthat's what the historical
(02:34):
marker says that's where thefirst Spanish settlers Uh camped
before they went into the range, and it's north from there and
Approximately where it's ex,where the exit is approximately
near Secorro, which means helpin Spanish.
Yeah, so this place had nowater when the Spanish were
(02:59):
coming through, but that wasn'talways the case.
When the Spanish came through,there was no water and the
reason why they went that waywas because they could not, or
it was at least much moredifficult to go through.
Uh, what is now T or C?
And wrap around the river withoxen and yeah, wheels and etc.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, I'm struck by the the maps that we have.
We have one from, uh, this, the1758 uh banado de mierra
ipecheco's map from the palaceof the governors and, and you
can see, they kind of thoughtthe Rio Grande bent a little
more dramatic than it reallydoes.
(03:43):
But Right, right there wheretoday, um, the canyons have been
filled in by elephant buttelake and uh, um, and by the dams
there, uh, that travel got waytoo rugged through those canyons
along the Rio Grande, um, sothey they kind of had to leave
(04:05):
the banks of the river wherethere was this Ready water
supply, and they had to passthrough those planes, through
the desert and it was brutal.
And, and you mentioned tojohnny that down at the Geronimo
Springs Museum in T or C, theyhave another explanation for why
(04:26):
, even without the the danger oftrying to get carts and Oxen
through those cliffs and canyons, there was another danger out
there at T or C, right, johnny?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
uh, yeah, it was.
It was a difficult uh journey,to say the least, but, um, when
the Spanish came through, atleast, um, hot springs, or what
is now T or C, is where theapaches would come down from the
Gila and come down frommescalero and and all meet up
(05:03):
and um.
For the Spanish, at least, itwas by passing that area, um to
give them a little bit morepeace, um, from from the natives
who would, who knew the regionbetter than the spanish
spaniards at the time.
Yeah yeah, so so, but beforethat, um, it wasn't always so
(05:27):
dry, mm-hmm.
Now, if you go out in there andand another thing to to know,
or the another another locationnow is space port.
Space port america is at thesouthern port portion of this,
um, ironically enough, uh,hornata de mordo, um, I don't
(05:50):
know what that means In the longrun, but space port america is
essentially the entry point ofthe, uh, the hornata de mordo
journey.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, but it's a nice empty.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Nice empty desert is a good place to test Missiles or
launch rockets.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
That's why I drop atomic bombs.
Yes.
Yeah, so nobody lives out there.
Uh, very few animals live outthere.
There's very little water outthere.
Now it is Hot beyond belief andI don't know if you've ever
been out there drew.
But I went out there, I don'tknow, three or four or five
years ago and it was the firsttime in a long time where I was
(06:35):
looking at my gas tank andsaying I I don't know if I want
to risk this journey withoutsufficient gas and water.
It was in the middle of thesummer and it was.
It was quite hot, 110, 115degrees.
Oh, when I was out there, um,but it wasn't always so dry and
and way back in the day, um,there were lots of uh native,
(07:00):
native, um indigenous peopleswho inhabited the region.
Um, there was evidence to thenorth of the hornata, down there
, near uh, near what is thetrinity site and kind of
kerososo region up north, wherethe the uh malpice, the volcanic
(07:20):
Remnants of the volcano thathas come through.
There's evidence of nativepeople 10 000 years ago, 11 000
years ago, 9 000 bce um.
But some reason, for some reasonthey took off and they think it
was a lot wetter, and then itstarted to dry up.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, the same kind of phenomenon that probably had
that lake where we talked aboutthe footprints from 20,000 years
ago near White Sands.
Similar topography, similargeography, and when it was water
it would have been a lot easierto live there.
So we found our oldest evidenceof human habitation in North
(08:12):
America currently is not farfrom there.
It's where some kids wereplaying and getting picked up
and carried by some adults alonga lake that dried up long since
, but that's why we have thegypsum at White Sands.
You know all that lake bedgypsum that's become the sand
(08:36):
now that has formed one of ournational parks here in New
Mexico.
All right, well, Onyate bravedthis journey what and on his
first trip north in 15,000 years92, 94, something like that.
(09:00):
I think he went up in.
Didn't he go up in 98?
Late 1500s.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Let's go with that 1590.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
But in any event, he brought the first European
livestock on that journey wetalked about in the last episode
.
Prior to that, it was prettymuch just what turkeys and dogs
were the domesticated animals ofthe native people here and he
(09:40):
brought pigs and oxen and horsesinto our back here.
They'd been here.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
If I remember correctly and from our last
podcast about Onyate, he broughtsomething like what four, five,
six thousand head of animals,herd of cattle and sheep and all
sorts of different things hebrought them in.
So they must have braved thehornata del marto all together
(10:09):
at that time, I would presume.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he did finally make it in 1598.
He came through.
But in 1599, we have our firstcandidate for a named dead man.
Certainly there are someestimates from the hornata that
(10:33):
there might have been agravesite every couple of miles
along there.
But in 1599, his cousin FráCristobal de Salazar, tried to
head back to Mexico City and didnot make it.
(10:56):
So that mountain range becamenamed after.
I don't know if we say Frá Fré,fré Frá Cristobal, some people
say it looks like it looks likethe priests, but certainly
(11:18):
that's that Onyate named thatparticular range which forms
that boundary of the hornataAfter our cousin.
They did not survive his firstexpedition, didn't make it back
to Mexico City alive.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Not the first and not the last, I presume.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
No, no, but obviously they did make it up.
And the rest of them Onyate didbecome New Mexico's first
European governor colonized, aswe talked about.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
But this route, even though Onyate was the first one,
who did it?
First European, supposedly, whodid it?
This became a very importantsegment of the trade route
between Mexico City and Santa Fe.
The last outpost of Mexico orSpain at the time of the hornata
(12:38):
de Muerte, became the mostcrucial segment of the trade
route and the Camino Real.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Right, and even today .
I mean, I've been near thereand we've seen javelinas, the
wild pig descendants and theirperiodic wild horse, I guess
cullings or gatherings from theWhite Sands missile range,
(13:10):
because that whole ecosystem isprofoundly affected by the fact
that pigs were driven down thetrails.
Horse sheep were brought downthose trails to Mexico City.
That was one of the earliestforms of livelihood up here was
people would raise sheep andbring their pigs back down to
(13:36):
Mexico and sell them and thencome back with whatever
manufactured grids they couldget from down there.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, before the Spanish, before the Spaniards
came, there was still arelatively extensive trade
network between New Mexicans, orthe indigenous people of what
is now New Mexico and southernMexico.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, we'll probably do a whole episode later on
Chaco, but in the intestinalPueblo and Chaco had feathers
parrot feathers from all the waydown in Mexico City they had
shells from the Pacific Oceanand even copper from the Great
Lakes region, so there weretrade routes that connected
(14:26):
everywhere.
These European explorers areoften really just traveling
paths that have had many feettrotting them for millennia up
until then.
And again that kind of pictureyou're kind of picturing,
cutting off it around hatch andcutting across the desert,
(14:53):
passing behind those mountains,right by Elephant Butte Lake and
Caballo now, and going upthrough those plains all the way
up north and I guess our nextcandidate should we talk about
our next candidate for the deadman?
Speaker 1 (15:10):
It's a cool story.
You know it best, so go for it.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Okay, yeah, so this is from a national monument, the
Salinas Pueblo missionsnational monument, a little
south of Albuquerque, down nearmountain.
There there are three missionsbuilt there and at that time the
(15:37):
Spanish were.
You know, they're named theSalinas missions because there's
salt that you can gather.
But at the time the Inquisitionwas pretty active here.
So there was a man named ElAlaman, the German, and he was
(16:00):
arrested by the office of theHoly Inquisition and you know as
he what's the Manipata insketch.
No one expects the SpanishInquisition Well, no one
expected the Inquisition to beso powerful up here.
But they had a serious tension.
They had arguments withgovernors and even arranged to
(16:24):
have a couple of early governorsarrested and tried.
But the German was unfortunate.
He was selling trinkets.
He snuck into the choir loftwhere the Pueblons were singing
for Sunday services and he wasselling some trinkets.
(16:44):
So it's kind of hard to imaginewhat they were exactly.
In one account they might havebeen pieces of paper that they
could swallow and they would beprotected from harm.
It's kind of strange to imaginea German coming out here.
But New Mexico was the end ofthe world, you know.
(17:06):
It was maybe where a lot ofpeople came for refuge from that
very same Spanish Inquisitionor from others, but he wound up
getting arrested for two yearsin the early 1700s.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And let's see what was his name.
Gruber was his name and theGerman Bernardo Gruber.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, so presumably he was born Graphnag or
something, but he was arrested.
Let's see.
When did he get?
He was arrested.
According to the National ParkService and the local author,
(18:01):
douglas Preston, he was arrestedin 1670, but there's some
tension about whether they havethe authority to arrest him and
he wind up just kind of sittingin prison there for a couple of
years in a jail cell waiting toget sent back to Mexico for a
(18:24):
trial.
And there's a couple of namesAtencio, atenacio but he had an
Apache companion servant maybe,who eventually gets tired of
(18:47):
waiting for Gruber to get out,so he breaks him out of jail and
they take off the Apache again.
Atenacio, atencio.
He took a horse and a harkabusand they headed out into the
(19:11):
Honaro.
The German El Alamán was a guynamed Bernardo Gruber presumably
Bernardo Gruber, and this is astory from the Salinas Pueblo
missions, just near Mount Nair,a little south of Albuquerque,
(19:33):
those national monuments wherethe Spanish had established
three missions named after thesalt they were using or trading
in.
But they had indigenous laborbuild these big churches.
And Gruber snuck into a choirloft where the Puebloans were
(19:59):
singing and was selling somecharms.
They might have been pieces ofpaper that he was saying, get
swallowed and they would protectyou from harm.
And he winds up running afoulof the Inquisition which even up
here, the very end of theSpanish Empire, was a threat.
(20:20):
They had tensions with some ofour governors.
They arrested a couplegovernors.
They arrest Gruber in 1670, butbecause there was disputes
about whether they have theauthority to do so, he just
languishes.
He's sitting there in a jailcell for over a year before his
(20:41):
Apache companion, sometimesnamed Atenacio, sometimes
Atencio, but a Apache companionor a servant or a friend, gets
tired of waiting for him, so hebreaks him out of jail.
But unfortunately Gruber hadbeen in a small cell for a while
(21:02):
and they head out across theHonada with a horse and a
harkabas and they flee trying toescape the office of the
Inquisition.
But the accounts kind of differfrom there.
There's one account where youcan see there's a claim that his
(21:27):
servant killed him, which makesno sense to me, because why
would he rescue him to take himout into the desert to kill him?
He could have left him there.
But the more realistic storyand the more common story is
that Gruber, who's not beengetting exercise and is not
(21:49):
presumably in great physicalshape, it kind of collapses and
asks Atenacio to go ahead andfind water.
But I guess they had two horses, because Gruber had a horse too
.
But Atenacio does leave and insome accounts Atenacio's gore.
(22:15):
He finds water and is trying tocarry it back.
It falls and breaks so he hasto head back and soak a saddle
blanket and try to get back tothe German.
But by the time he gets backGruber had possibly panicked,
possibly succumbed to someravings and wandered off.
(22:41):
A search party wouldn't findhim, but a few weeks later they
found a dead horse tied to atree and a doublet lined with
otter skin which had belonged toEl Alamon and scattered around
found several ribs, some chewedbones and a massive hair.
(23:02):
So they gathered up what theycould find, took it back to
Senefe After setting up ourcross at the spot which became
known as La Cruz de Alamon andlater Alamon New.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Mexico.
And if you go east of Tiersienow today you cross the Elephant
Butte dam and you go east andyou head through that little
mountain range, there is ahistorical marker that
(23:42):
supposedly is approximatelywhere he was found or died or
something along those lines,heading out towards Engle and
Alamon, new Mexico.
Yeah.
Which maybe four or five, sixpeople live in those communities
combined.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, they're pretty empty places out there, so I
guess whatever happened to hisquote unquote assistant.
Well, he apparently lived, Imean he made it through and
(24:21):
continued his life from thereand kind of passes into history.
But he certainly doesn't everreally face justice for breaking
the German out, which isprobably good.
You know, presumably, like yousaid, johnny, if he's from the
(24:48):
Apache people from that region,he would have known a lot more
about that area than anyone elseand probably, you know it would
have been hard for anybody tokeep up with a guy that could
travel and communicate inSpanish and indeed indigenous
languages there.
So he kind of passes intoobscurity.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
So we have the Spaniards in the late 1600s
traveling up and down and theCamino Real was very important,
at least for the Spaniards, andlater Mexico, because that was
the only trade route fornorthern New Mexico and until,
obviously, the Santa Fe Trail in1821.
(25:32):
So that was the only way forfolks to get any information
from the old world, if you will,for a long time and, drew, if
you know of anything about theSpanish Inquisition in northern
New Mexico, there's a reallygood book about the Sephardic
Jews colonizing or whatever theterm would be establishing
(25:58):
themselves in northern NewMexico.
There's a book called, I think,to the ends of the earth.
That's really fascinating aboutthe measures that people
undertook to escape the SpanishInquisition.
It was less fair than itprobably should have been, to
say it nicely.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I haven't read that book, but I
do know that.
You know, we always hear 1492is the year of Columbus, but
it's also the year that the Kingof Castile and Etihad unites
Spain and one of the firstorders that Queen Isabella and
(26:41):
King Ferdinand put out is allJews, all Muslims, must convert
or go into exile or faceexecution.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So convert or die yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
So a lot of people kind of chose that third path
get as far away from the, theholy Inquisition, as they could
and some of them did wind upcoming out here, so kind of
continued to practice.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Right.
This route was used forhundreds of years, I guess, and,
and, and.
Eventually, as we know ourhistory, spanish were overthrown
in 1821 by the, the MexicanRepublic and I, but I presume
the Camino Real was lessimportant, but maybe it was
(27:42):
still important, I'm not sure,but it was until 18.
What was the Mexican-AmericanWar?
1848, 1848, yeah, 1846, 1848,when the United States took over
this region assumedjurisdiction, yeah, of this
region and and very closethereafter, the Civil War took
(28:07):
place and drew, I don't know ifyou know the Battle of Valverde
and the first battle.
If you maybe not the firstbattle, but that battle near
Fort Craig is also out there onthe Hornada, essentially the
Hornada del Muerto, the northernportion of the Hornada del
(28:28):
Muerto.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
That's the.
That's the site where theConfederates actually won right.
They defeated a force partiallyled by Kit Carson and and
continued north until eventuallythey would meet their, their,
their match, but Pecos andGloria right exactly and and
(28:54):
even though they won, you know,some would say they lost because
they didn't cover.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
They didn't capture Fort Craig, but the the, the
Confederates under GeneralSibley, went that route.
As far as I know, I could bewrong, but I think I think they
went that route north fromMessia where Colonel Baylor was
and they went that route and,shockingly, were really thirsty
(29:23):
and hungry after that thatjourney and then they were not
able to capture Fort Craig andin lieu of okay, wasting energy
or whatever, they took off northand went went into Albuquerque
to prepare for the Battle ofGloriata Pass.
Yeah, so some folks stayedbehind the, the Unionists stayed
(29:47):
behind and and kept Fort Craig.
Fort Craig was very wellpositioned at the time and had
very well had a lot of resourcesfor folks in that area.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
All right, and we know they, the Confederates, did
take wagon trains across thatHuarnada, because eventually,
that's that's how we, theColorado and New Mexico
volunteers, managed to defeatthem.
They so some people still claimthat, gloriata, more Union
troops were killed thanConfederates, but meanwhile some
(30:27):
of the Union forces droppeddown behind the Confederate
lines and burned their wagons,and so at that point there was
no longer an option to maintainany kind of invading force, and
that closed the the chapter ofthe Civil War, and what was a?
General Sibley and his forcesretreated back to Texas, thank
(30:48):
God.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, although some would argue they should have
finished them off before theygot to Texas.
But so after the Civil War,after the United States took
possession of that, of course,the United Statesians started to
move in and I don't know ifyou've heard of this story, drew
(31:09):
, but have you heard of thestory of Jack Martins well?
No, no.
So Jack Martins, well, it was awell in the southern portion of
and it's not in our outlinehere, but Jack Martins well was,
(31:30):
you know, prior to the Spanish.
It used to be a little bitwetter up there and or down
there where we're looking, andthere was a well or an area
called Ojo de Muerto.
It used to be reliable duringthe Spanish times, but that
dried up, and so folks nearAlamon or Engel, down there,
(31:54):
they needed, they needed waterto make that journey.
They were still using theHornado de Muerto post Civil War
as a trade route or as atraveling route, rather, and
there's a guy, I believe hisname is Jack Martin, who dug a
well and he I can't rememberwhere I've read this or seen
(32:19):
this, but he dug a well and hedropped all sorts of money and
it was his claim to fame, Iguess.
But on the last day where hewas about to give up they were
about to give up digging thewell they hit water and boom it
was, they discovered water andthey were able to continue that
(32:41):
traveling through that routebecause of that well, stop for a
long time thereafter.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Okay, yeah, I'm looking it up and from Sierra
County they're saying 1868 waswhen he dug that well.
And the well is still pumping,is it?
Well?
I don't know when this post wascreated I'd have to but this is
(33:12):
from a site called MIMS Memoryand from the Sierra County
Centennial Video Series, sopresumably that might have been
a little while ago, butSpaceport America was already in
existence and it was still inuse.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
so Okay, Captain Nut.
Yes, Jack Martin's well,Captain Jack Martin.
Jack Martin was a officer inthe Union Army.
He came out with the Californiacolumn, came out to New Mexico
Territory in 1862 with theCalifornia column.
Okay who?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
They were coming to help in the Civil War right.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
They were, they were up to try to track down.
Generally, simply, they came alittle bit too late.
But those folks ColonelFountain is the famous one, came
out with the California columnmostly stayed in southern New
Mexico and Captain Jack or JohnMartin dug this well.
So for a long time people stilltraveled that way, until the
(34:21):
roads, until the automobile wereable to carve out and heavy
machinery were able to carve outbetter trade routes or better
roads.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
In the early 1900s, and today, as we mentioned, that
well continued pumping at leastup until the Spaceport of
America era.
So I don't know if that's stillworking, but you have here that
Ted Turner has come to thatpart of the world.
(34:56):
He's the largest, isn't he thelargest ranch holder here in New
Mexico.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I believe he's the largest private landowner in New
Mexico and his land down there.
I believe there's a couple ofthem, but the ranch is now known
as the Armandaris Ranch orArmandadis Ranch, and that's a
fascinating story aboutsuccession and claims and
(35:22):
stealing consolidation theArmandaris people family.
But in long story short, tedTurner has purchased that land.
So if you head out east and youhit the Engle head out east
from TLC, there is a big signand I can't tell you how many
acres, but we're talkingthousands of acres, if not
(35:46):
hundreds of thousands of acresof land down there that Ted
Turner or whomever owns TedTurner's ranch is now.
I believe around 1990, 1994,something like that, he
purchased most of that land forabout $14, $50 million or
(36:12):
something crazy, but it lookslike.
Ted Turner owns around there istrying to find the exact
acreage, but 358,643 acres fortwo thirds of the original
Armandaris Grant Ted.
(36:34):
Turner owns it's just absolutelyenormous and it runs from the
southern boundary of the Bosquede la Pache to through the
historic towns of Tiffany,valverde, la Mesa, south of
Engle, which is approximatelySpace Force America, and the
(36:56):
widest point of this ranch is 23miles east to west.
Absolutely massive landholdingsdown there.
53 miles of the Rio Grandeflows through the ranch.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh my God.
Yeah, I'm looking at this siteyou've posted and, yeah, it
covers both sides.
Fort Craig that you justmentioned is right next to there
and I guess Armandaris was partof the.
He was granted it right Rightbefore Mexico won independence
(37:32):
from Spain in 1819, but he waspart of the contingent that
arrested Zebulon Pike of PikesPeak.
That's right For scouting andhe's for scouting out the
interior lands of the Spanish.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Allegedly.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, allegedly, but he certainly was arrested.
But he was working for alieutenant who became the
governor of New Mexico andgranted him this very extensive
(38:13):
land that he mentioned, thegrant number 33, the grant
number 34.
So vast tracts, some of whichwas privately held by him, I
guess Merced, and some of whichwas like a community land grant.
(38:34):
But his holdings would havebeen huge, absolutely huge and
he kept consolidating.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I believe his son or his nephew, whomever assumed
that, kept consolidating andkept taking stealing whatever
the word may be to grow itlarger and larger.
But one thing I do want to talkabout before Ted Turner
post-Civil War, before TedTurner buying this stuff, is the
(39:04):
Trinity site, which lies on thenorthern part of the Hornada
and that was the first atomicbomb detonated detonation site
July 16, 1945.
(39:25):
And we all know Oppenheimer'swords Now I am become death, the
destroyer of worlds.
That I think he said when thatfirst bomb was dropped, or maybe
it was after that.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, I actually learned this.
He may have thought it, but hesaid it in an interview years
later, so he wasn't.
But he was saying in hisinterview.
He was saying he was recallingthat passage, that passage from
the Gotcha, from Hindu scripture.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
So probably what he's done.
Not so ironic, given theHornada del Muerto, the whole
history of the region it is.
It fits in line with theHornada del Muerto.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, and you have a couple of preservation notes.
We've already mentioned that,the national monuments at Kodai
and Abo and the Salinas Pueblomissions there.
They're interesting places togo Because you can certainly see
(40:37):
the Kiva practices beingpracticed right next to the
churches that they're building.
So the indigenous religion waspreserved in a form there.
One of the Kivas is actuallyrectangular, which may or may
not have been a Europeaninfluence.
I guess those occasionally showup.
(41:02):
Most Kivas were round, butthat's of course the underground
ceremonial site, that kind ofwhere the Pueblans honored their
ancestors, many of whom had dugpit houses originally.
But you mentioned the point ofrocks trail too, johnny.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, there are a couple.
If you really want to get outthere and explore this on your
own, there's a couple differenttrails the point of rocks trail,
which is a half mile loop thatstarts at the ends at the top of
a rock outcrop that was alandmark for travelers on the
Camino Real Point of rocks.
(41:49):
This area informed or signifiedto travelers that water was
only 10 miles away from thatlocation.
So you can get to it from acouple different ways but I-25,
you exit 79 and head east forabout 30 miles and you're out in
(42:14):
the middle of nowhere.
But it's a pretty cool littletrail.
If you want to see what it waslike way back in the day, that's
one that you can go check out.
There's another one called theYoast Excarpment Trail, which is
part of the original trailsection, I believe, of the we're
not at El Merto.
(42:35):
It's about a mile and a halflong.
It ends at the top of anexcarpment which is a steep
rocky slope.
That quote was a true test forthe caravans with huge freight
wagons, according to the NPS.
And you get there from I-25,exit 79 and head east on 51 for
(42:57):
about 17 miles or, excuse me,then you get to up in Marode and
then you head south 17 miles.
We're talking in the middle ofnowhere.
If you do go out there, makesure you have lots of gasoline
in your vehicle.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Or charge these days.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Or charge, but I can assure you there are zero
charging stations out there.
I believe that.
I believe that.
So I wouldn't take an electricvehicle, just in case.
Don't go during the summertime,probably don't go during the
wintertime and if you go, takelots of water, just in case.
Last time I went a few yearsago my cell phone didn't even
work, which now it works almostanywhere, but it wasn't working
(43:40):
out there and it's kind ofdesolate.
It's really quite remarkable.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
But and we do have links to these directions.
You don't have to memorize theroutes, but everyone's always
welcome to download a podcastbefore they go in, because you
probably won't have a lot oflistening choices if you travel
(44:09):
out there.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Anyway, that's all I got drew the Hornada del Muerto.
I'm sure there's stuff wemissed, and so if y'all, if
anybody listening, wants to sendin a message or an email us or
something, you can find that onour website and we'll put that
in the links how to contact usthrough our social media.
But the Hornada del Muerto isone of the most historically
(44:38):
significant locations in theUnited States, in my opinion,
that folks don't really knowabout.
And one thing that I did forget, that we will bring up at some
point drew, is Victoria's Peak,which is also in the Hornada del
Muerto.
But there's so much historydown there, so much going on
(45:00):
without realizing it.
There's a lot that has gone ondown there.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Absolutely, absolutely and again, safe
travels to everyone if they dotravel through there.
And yeah, it was the mostperilous part of what some
people say is the most importantof the three Western trails for
a long time you know thatOregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail
(45:30):
and the Camino Real are allconsidered some of those
important passages from beforethe railroads came through, but
from much of our history thatwas the most important of the
three.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
All right On.
Thanks everybody for listening.
Right Until next time, pleasevisit our website
enchantmentchroniclescom and anyof our social media.
But until next time, safetravels.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Adios, adios.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Adios.
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