D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e     March 2005

A Journey Through Time

The old trail the Spanish called El Camíno Real de Tierra Adentro offers new opportunities for tourism, with a heritage center slated to open this fall.

Story & photos by Jay W. Sharp

Fort Craig ruins along the historic trail

A millennia-old corridor for human passage, the trail that the Spanish called El Camíno Real de Tierra Adentro (the Royal Road to the Interior) has served as an avenue for commerce, conquest, warfare, migration, adventure, flight and ideological change. From the Río Grande ford, often called, "The Pass," which became a focal point for settlement, commerce, transportation and, eventually, the military post Fort Bliss, the trail bore northward, up the Río Grande valley for some 55 miles, passing the Franklin and Organ mountain ranges. Just north of the Robledo Mountains, near Las Cruces, the trail veered away from the river, which follows a westward-bending arc through a dissected landscape before it resumes its north-south course. The trail itself "strung the bow," intercepting both ends of the river's arc. The 90-mile segment, which lay east of the Caballo and Fra Cristóbal ranges and lacked any dependable sources of water, became known as the "Jornada del Muerto"—the "journey of the dead"—and as the most notorious single passage in the entire Camíno Real.

Rejoining the river, the trail followed the valley northward for 150 miles, through the region of the pueblos that greeted Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. It passed that brooding, lava-capped mesa called "Contadero." It skirted the western edge of a sprawling and biologically rich marshland called the "Bosque del Apache." Hewing to the Río Grande, the trail passed Albuquerque and the western flanks of the Manzano and Sandía mountain ranges, then began the ascent from the desert or the Río Abajo, the Lower River, to the southern Rocky Mountain foothills and the Río Arriba, or Upper River. At the Santo Domingo Pueblo, the trail veered away from the Río Grande again, following its Cañada de Santa Fe tributary for roughly 30 miles into the community of Santa Fe and the main plaza, which anchored the northern end of the trail.

Today, with the exception of the Jornada del Muerto, the corridor parallels I-10 from El Paso to Las Cruces and I-25 from Las Cruces to Santa Fe. The trail's near coincidence with our modern highways reflects the route's natural and historic place as a roadway for human travel.

The storied old trail that once connected Mexico City with Española now holds new economic and cultural promise for the heart of New Mexico. It brings opportunity because the 360-mile-long US segment of the Camíno Real, from the Río Grande ford, just west of downtown El Paso, to Española, some 25 to 30 miles north of Santa Fe, has been declared a National Historic Trail. Gauged by the antiquity of human traffic, the migrations of populations, the flow of cultural currents and ideology, the drama of its long story, and faithfulness to the original corridor, it is one of the most historic trails in the Americas. It has all the potential for becoming a major new attraction for tourism in New Mexico.

The Camíno Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail comes under the joint administration of the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, with support from the volunteer Camíno Real de Tierra Adentro Trail Association (CARTA). The trail's new El Camíno Real International Heritage Center, a New Mexico State Monument, located about 35 miles south of Socorro, is jointly funded and administered by the state and the BLM, with support from El Camíno Real International Heritage Center Foundation, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and local governments. It is slated to open in the fall of 2005.

Already, federal and state legislatures have provided startup funding. The NPS and BLM have completed a detailed management plan and environmental-impact statement. They have assumed administrative responsibilities. They are preparing signs to mark trail sites.

CARTA, with about 150 charter members, has completed its organizational startup. Working with the NPS and BLM, it has set near-term priorities and objectives. It is enlisting stronger legislative support at the federal and state levels. It is forming committees. It is defining criteria for certification of sites. It has held its second symposium, initiated strategic planning, and issued its inaugural journal. It is planning a Web site. Meanwhile, the state and BLM have completed construction of the Heritage Center building and are constructing exhibits in preparation for the opening.


For many centuries before the Spanish arrived, Indian nomads and traders moved up and down the trail to hunt game, gather useful plants, exchange goods and convey beliefs and ideas.

In the winters of 1540-41 and 1541-42, the Spanish discovered the trail. General Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his conquistadors explored the corridor from the northern end of the Jornada del Muerto upstream into the Southern Rocky Mountain range, visiting pueblos scattered along the Río Grande and its tributaries.

In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate, in a royally endorsed enterprise, led the first successful colonizing expedition up the trail.

In the summer of 1680, more than 2,000 Spanish survivors of a bloody Puebloan revolt—triggered by the colonists' notions of conquest, entitlements, culture and Catholicism—fled down the trail to refuge near The Pass. Twelve years later, the Spanish marched back up the trail to reclaim the land and establish an enduring presence.

In 1807, explorer and territorial intruder Zebulon Pike (of Pike's Peak fame) marched down the trail as a prisoner of Spanish authorities, who suspected him of gathering intelligence in New Spain for the United States.

In 1821, Mexico overthrew three centuries of Spanish rule. Within months, US traders forged a link between the trail and a brand-new route, the Santa Fe Trail. In coming years, they would use the two trails, joined at Santa Fe, as a conduit for moving trade goods from Missouri all the way to Ciudad Chíhuahua.
By 1841, the commerce had become so lucrative that Texas, still independent, sent a military expedition to New Mexico—the Texas Santa Fe Expedition—purportedly for the purpose of establishing trade links but with the sub rosa intention of annexing the territory and co-opting the Chíhuahua market. It failed. The Mexicans captured the Texans, sending them down the trail to prison in Mexico.

During the Mexican-American war, a US force under Colonel Alexander Doniphan marched down the trail from Santa Fe, and on Christmas Day 1846 engaged and defeated Mexican troops at El Brazito, about 25 miles up the Río Grande from The Pass. When the war ended, on February 2, 1848, the US had won control of all of Texas and most of the Southwest.

In 1854, under an agreement negotiated by John Gadsden in Mesilla, the US purchased a 30,000-square-mile strip of land that became today's southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona.

As the US asserted control of its new territory, the army had to establish a military presence on the trail to protect caravans and settlers from raids by Apaches and Navajos. During the 1850s, troopers built Fort Fillmore, located about six miles south of Mesilla; Fort Thorn, near the southern end of the Jornada del Muerto; and Fort Craig, near the northern end of the Jornada del Muerto.

A few years later, in 1862, Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley led a force of Texans—Sibley's Brigade—up the trail and into battle against Union forces at the site known as Valverde, near Fort Craig, where he won a costly and bloody victory. He continued up the trail, seizing Albuquerque and Santa Fe without opposition, but he blundered into disaster at Glorieta Pass, in the southern Rockies, east of Santa Fe. Sibley and his beaten brigade retreated down the trail to Fort Bliss, a third of his force dead, wounded, sick or captured.

In the early 1860s, with Apaches and Navajos still raiding settlers, Union soldiers built Fort McRae on the western flank of the Fra Cristóbal Mountains and Fort Selden at the southern end of the Jornada del Muerto, replacing Fort Thorn.

In the years following the Civil War, traders, travelers and settlers continued to drive caravans of settlers and trade goods over the trail. In 1881, the railroad arrived, following a route closely parallel to the trail.
The railroad signaled the end of the caravans, but today, we still travel the trail—though now in automobiles, trucks, trains and airplanes. In fact, as you fly up the Río Grande over southern New Mexico, you can still see the trail left by caravans that crossed the Jornada del Muerto.

Today, you can drive virtually the entire length of the trail corridor, exploring the ancient pathways of nomads, traders, armies, colonists, missionaries, migrants, refugees and merchants. You will discover that the trail, thousands of years old, still remains vibrantly alive.

Just south of The Pass, in Juárez, a turbulent and growing city with a population of roughly 1.5 million, you will find quiet sanctuary at the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Mission church, located on the west side of the central plaza. It is the oldest surviving church between Chíhuahua City and Santa Fe.

On the US side of the Río Grande, you can visit the actual location of The Pass. Unfortunately, the crossing, one of the most historic sites on the entire trail, now lies a victim of international neglect and decay, marked only by a few ill-kept monuments and some dilapidated buildings. Better, you can follow a branch of the trail downstream and visit three other churches—in the El Paso suburbs of Ysleta, Socorro and San Elizario—which all had roots in Spanish colonial times.

Traveling northward up the trail, you will follow I-10 for about 45 miles from El Paso to Las Cruces and I-25 for about 285 miles from Las Cruces to Santa Fe. Just west of I-10 and Las Cruces, you'll find the old Hispanic community of Mesilla, where the territorial-style plaza and historic district have warranted recognition both as a National Historic Landmark and a State Monument. Mesilla witnessed the passing of trade caravans, the march of Mexican and American armies, the signing of the Gadsden Treaty, bawling herds of westbound longhorns, the clattering arrivals and departures of John Butterfield's stagecoaches, the trial of Billy the Kid, an unwelcome stay by Roy Bean (later, Texas' famous self-appointed judge and "Law West of the Pecos"), skirmishes between Confederate and Union soldiers, and the materialization of several fine ghosts.

Some 12 miles north of the Las Cruces and two miles west of I-25, you come to the ruins of Fort Selden, built just after the Civil War. The fort was garrisoned by black soldiers—the famed "Buffalo Soldiers"—of the 125th Infantry, and commanded by the father of that future General of the Armies, Douglas MacArthur, who said that he "learned to ride and shoot" at Fort Selden even before he "learned to read and write."

About 15 miles north of Fort Selden, I-25 departs from the original corridor of the trail, at the southern end of the Jornada del Muerto, and follows the long westward-bending arc around the Caballo and Fra Cristóbal mountain ranges and the Caballo and Elephant Butte lakes before it rejoins the corridor at the northern end of the Jornada. You can, if you like, follow roughly half of the Jornada, from the Upham exit to Engle, provided you're willing to negotiate a poorly marked gravel road.

Near the area where I-25 begins to re-converge with the trail corridor at the north end of the Jornada del Muerto, you'll find the ruins of Fort Craig. It lies on the west side of the river, across from the lava-capped Mesa del Contadero and the Valverde battle site.

A few miles farther north, you come to the Bosque del Apache, a marsh and national wildlife refuge that issues a siren call to migratory birds and wildlife enthusiasts every fall, especially in November, the month of the Festival of the Cranes.

Continuing northward, on I-25 toward Albuquerque, you will drive by Río Grande bottomlands which have been farmed for centuries, first by Puebloan peoples, then by European descendants.

About 12 miles before you reach Albuquerque, you will pass near the Isleta Pueblo, where some of the Native American residents joined the long column of Spaniards in retreat from the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

In Albuquerque, which began as a Spanish colonial farming community and military outpost early in the 18th century, you can wander through the Old Town historic district and the San Felipe de Neri parish church. Just east of the Old Town plaza, you will find art and natural science museums. At the western margin of Albuquerque, across the Río Grande, you can explore Petroglyph National Monument.

North of Albuquerque and just west of I-25, you will pass the old community of Bernalillo and the ruins of a pueblo, Kuaua, now the Coronado State Monument. It lies within the old Puebloan province of Tiguex, where Coronado and his expedition spent the winters of 1540-41 and 1541-42.

Just north of Bernalillo and the monument, on I-25, you'll veer away from the Río Grande and begin the ascent from the desert to the foothills of the southern Rockies and Santa Fe, the final leg of the trail corridor. En route, you can visit the living history museum El Rancho De Los Golandrinas, a reconstructed Spanish colonial settlement that was once the last stop on the Chíhuahua Trail before you reach Santa Fe.

"Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, is the only town of any importance in the province," Josiah Gregg said in The Commerce of the Prairies, first published in 1844. In the central plaza, residents witnessed the raising of Spanish, Mexican, US, Confederate and US (again) flags. Spanish colonists and their descendants celebrated religious holidays, welcomed caravans, punished heretics, fought Indians, marketed their goods, and held Sunday evening promenades. Merchants and residents welcomed the arrival of caravans from the south and, after 1821, from Missouri.

In the plaza today, you can still explore markets and celebrate festivals, and across the street, you can visit the Governor's Palace, now the state history museum and a designated National Historic Landmark and American Treasure. You will find more of Santa Fe's charm in its old streets, the old churches, the adobe buildings, and the art galleries and museums. If the spirit moves you, you can drive up US Highway 285/84 to Española, near the pueblos where Oñate founded the first European settlement in the Southwest.

In driving the corridor of the trail, you can see the signatures of travelers of thousands of years. They left the records of their journeys recorded, not only in chronicles, but in worn pathways, sandy soils, stone surfaces, adobe walls, battlefields, distinctive architecture, painters' canvases and the flotsam and jetsam of their passage. In retracing their steps, you will have done more than drive several hundred miles. You will have made a journey through time.

As a National Historic Trail, El Camíno Real de Tierra Adentro holds exceptional promise for New Mexico. First, it can offer adventurous tourists an opportunity for theme travel and tours. Second, it offers politicians, government agencies, commercial interests, researchers and enthusiasts one of those rare moments when the interests of all can coincide in a common cause.

It holds special promise for southern New Mexico. As Dr. Edward Staski, professor of anthropology and director of the University Museum at NMSU, says in a forthcoming paper that will be published in CARTA's Chronicles of the Trail, "...developing heritage tourism and outreach also results in economic enrichment, a very real need in the economically deprived communities of the Mesilla Valley." Staski reinforces his point by quoting Edward H. Able, Jr., president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Museums: "Cultural tourists are an appealing and growing market, and there is emerging an extraordinary opportunity for local communities, cultural organizations, and the tourist industry to work together towards mutually beneficial goals."

Just as the trail helped build New Mexico over hundreds of years of history, today it can help southern New Mexico grow even as we learn to preserve and treasure that heritage.

Jay W. Sharp is a Las Cruces writer who is a regular contributor to DesertUSA, an Internet magazine, and other regional and national publications, and is the author of a book called Texas Unexplained. He has other books under contract with regional publishers. He specializes in travel, history, natural history, events and entertainment, and last wrote for Desert Exposure about the "Little Ice Age" (January 2005). He recently assumed the editorship for CARTA's quarterly journal, Chronicles of the Trail.

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