Cañon City record., 1897-08-05
FULL OF FREAKS.
Some Queer Doings OF the Rio
Grande River.
Ii Changes Its Course IN the Most
Unaccountable Manner aAd
ObIiEes the People of .
Mexican Town.

It's freakish river, the Rio Grande,
and no mistake; for sudden turns and
capriciousness woman herself can't
equal it, said a former federal official
of New Mexico, talking of the recent
Hoods at El Paso. For the I,5o0 mites
# its course its character is every
thing by turns from navigable water
'c dry land. At its head, in the noun
famous San Juan county, in Colorado,
it is cold, clear trout stream; in
northern New Mexico its waters are
brown with sand in solution; further
2outh. where the liquid mud of the Rio
i'uereo DIRTY riyer) pours into it, its
waters become densel. muddy, and all
along, on its way to the sea. this queer
liver takes on one or another new fea-.
iure different from anything that has
preceded it,
The Rio Grande's habit of going un-
der ground here and there along its
curse. leaving dry channel above,
rom which it reappears anywhere
from mile to fifty miles below. has
recently been told in the Sun. which
also has published accounts of its
luicksands and burrowing eels and
3y this river that never 10 my knoyvl-
dge has been written except in local
,istory or in the record of some land
ase in court 1t is the way it sesved
the town of Mesilla. in southern New
Mexico The place is picturesque.
iignified looking old Spanish-Ameri-
an community, built about a plaza,
with orchards and vineyards snrround-
ng. and stood in the beginning on the
west bank of the river Before the
railroad came il was an important point
in the wagon freighting trade. and its
Peopie We're prosperous and happy.
Sut they had one cause of complaint
The routes of all the traffic from Texas
aud the north lay on the east of the
Rio Grande, aud stages and wagons
must ford the river in getting to and
from Mesilla. This was announcement
Mt all times, and involved danger and
delay in times of flood.
Que lastima" (what a pity), the
people often said. IF only our town
stood on the east bank of the brave
riveri-,
Their wish came to pass at last in a
startling way. There was an unusual
y
of the upper country one winter. and,
the spring opening warm, the snow
melted rapidly, with the result of
tremendous food in the lower Rio
Grande. The waters overspread she
level valley until aiesina, witch. lucki-
ly, had been built on an eminence, be-
came am island, the refuge of those
persons from the lower lands who had
not been drowned before they could
reach il. 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 flowing
past the town. n mile to the west of the
plaza
1t 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 of the COM
pass TO tally with the new order of
things. Many peon OF Mexican of
higher degree going or coming from
the plaza with load of aguardiente
inside his skin got an unexpected duck
ing in the river when he had looked for
dry land. or walked gingeriy across
the dry channel where the river used
to run. wondering why he could not
find the Rio Grande. Tales of such
misadventurcs were stock stories in the
lower valley for years after the Hood
There was n moro tragic aspect of the
business in the cpidemic which took
it's rise in the exhalations from the vast
extent of the river bottom left exposed
by the change OF the cEannci> Several
hundred people died from this cause in
the succeeding summer and autumn.
There are orchards and alfalfa fields
in the old channel now. but its course
can plainly he traced on the face 6: tie
ground; ard who knows when the Rio
Graudc may rot take " notion to ~
turn TO its old bed and set the maps
st fault again.-N- y. sun.