The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1897-07-24
FREAKS OF THE RIO GRANDE,
One Of Them Was to Shift Its Bed From
the East to the West of MesilAa.

One Of Them Was to Shift Its Bed From
the East to the West of Mest1Aa.
"It's a freakish river, the Rio
Grande, and no mistake. For sud
den turns and capriciousness woman
herself CAM equal it" said a former
federal official of New Mexico. For
the 1, 500 miles of it's course its char
acter is everything by turns from
navigable water to dry land. At its
head in the mountainous San Juan
country, in Colorado, it is a cold,
clear trout stream. In northern New
Mexico its waters are brown with
sand in solution. Farther south, |
where the liquid mud of the Rio
Puereo DIRTY river) pours into it,
its waters become densely muddy,
and all along on its long way to the
sea this queer river takes on one or
another new feature different from
anything that has preceded it.
""But there is one performance by
this river that never to my knowl-
edge has been written except in local
history or in the record of some land
case in court. 1t is the way it served
the town of Mesilla in southern New
Mexico. The place. is a picturesque.
dignitied looking old Spanish Ameri-
can community, built about plaza,
with orchards and vineyards sur
rounding, and stood in the begin
ming on the west bank of the river.
Before the railroad came it was an
important point in the wagon
freighting trade, and its people were
prosperous and happy. But they
had n cause of complaint. The
routes of all the traffic from Texas
and the north lay on the east of the
Rio Grande, and stages and wagons
must ford the river in getting to and
from Mesilla, This was inconven-
lent at all times and involved dan
ger and delay in times of food.
"'Que lastimal' (what PITY, the
people often said. IF only our town
stood on the east bank of the brave
riverl'
"Their wish came to pass at last
in a startling way. There was an
unusually heavy snowfall in the
mountains Of the upper country one
winter, and, the spring opening
warm, the snow melted rapidly, with
the result of a tremendous flood in
the lower Rio Grande. The waters
o~verspread the level valley until
Mesilla, which luckily had been built
On an eminence, became an island,
the refuge of those persons from the
lower lands who had not been
drowned before they could reach it.
The waters at last subsidized, and
then the discovery was made that
: the Rio Grande, instead of keeping
to it's old bed on the east, was flow
ing past the town a mile to the west
Of the plaza.
} at was what the people had said
they wanted, but it took them some
time to become used to the change
and get their landmarks and points
a of the compass to tally with the new
order of things. Many a peon OF
Mexican of higher degree going OF
a coming from the plaza with a load
, of aguardiente inside his skin got an
unexpected ducking in the river
when he had looked for dry land OF
walked gingerly across the dry
/ channel where the river used to run,
wondering why he could not find the
Rio Grande. Tales of such misad
ventures were stock stories in the
lower valley for years after the
flood. There was a more tragic as
pect of the business in the epidemic
: which took its rise in the exhala
tions from the vast extent of river
bottom left exposed by the change
of channel. Several hundred people
died from this cause in the succeed
ing summer and autumn. There ar,
orchards and alfalfa fields in the OLE
. channel now, but it's course cal
plainly be traced on the face of tn,
t ground, and who knows when thu
n Rio Grande may not take a notion
to return to its old bed and set tn
maps at fault again. New Yorl
Sun.