The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1907-05-28
OF MYSTERY
tbs LEGACY LEFT BY raE ANCIENT
TRlsss or NEW MEXICO.

a euAAAAnB enigma For tae acientaata
Ia the Hundred Mile City Of the
Dead, With It's Haunted Ruins, Pee-
pied with Skeletons.
Much has been written Of the cliff
ewellers; vast volumes have been COM
piled concerning the ancient tribes Of
Anahuac. the Toltecs, the vanished de-
scendants Of "the fair god" Of ancient
Mexico, and all the long gone tribes Of
the great southwest have had their
place In fictitious aud historic nara
tive. But who has heard Of the mystic
rious ''lost Atlantis" Of New Mexico.
the vanished people Of the mound,
whose tribes were once as the autumn
leaves and who perished-not indivld-
ually, but as race-at one fell swoop,
as from the avenging wrath of God7
The attention of the archaeOloglst
has been centered upon the hazy his
tory Of the cliff dwellers. upon their
homes and their habits, forgetting that
there exists in peculiar proximity a
field Of more attractive mystery. The
cliff dwellers have drawn our attention
because they left us their homes. The
vanished race Of Socorro county, N. NJ,
has failed to interest us for the reason
that it left US nothing nothing, not
even wall intact or a ruin unplun-
dered. Yet stayl Have you ever been
along the Tule Rosa In the wild plnon
clad regions Of the San Francisco
mountains? Are you familiar with that
hundred mile city of the dead" so
strangely like the lost city Of QuIvera,
yet far, far larger and more wonder
full Have you ever entered the great
excavation Of the prehistoric pueblo to
the south Of Luna, east Of the barren
pe1As OF Elk mountains?
The 'RuInas Encantadas," or hunt
ed ruins" Jas we would call them in
English, are but few miles north Of
San Francisco, not the San Francisco
of California, but the San Francisco Of
Socorro county, N. NJ, Mexican and
Indian pueblo older than the quaint
village Of Acoma, "the citadel Of the
Clouds" which was young when the
Spanish priests and explorers first ven
tured into that desert wilderness, to
be slaughtered az they attempted the
daring ascent to the summit Of the
great Acoma mesa.
The pueblo Of San Francisco was
crurnbIng Into decay when Acoma-so
called ~oldest city In America'-was
young and nourishlng with the blanket
weaving hosts of the Aztec. Her
quaint adobe ''house of penates" was
fast disintegrating when Montezuma
in his youth looked down In all his
pride and semisavage hauteur from the
gorgeous but barbarIc palace Of Cha
pnltepec So say the people Of the
present pueblo, whose generations
have lived and perished within its mar.
row boundaries
The haunted ruins" they tell US, are
peopled yet with grim and ghostly
gods of other days and with specters
that still stride threateningly along the
subterranean corridors. But we of to-
day are too enlightened to accept this
savage superstition, SO we will look at
the "Ruinas Encantadas'' only as they
are. There is but little left of them.
In 1867 the first white man, whose
name was Smith, ventured into the
forbiddlng fastnesses of the land Of
Tule Rosa. Smith, then in the prime
Of life arrived at Magdalena in quest
of newer fields Of gold--in quest of
fortune, pleasure and adventure A
Yankee in every sense, there was no
danger In the wilds of the hundred
mile city Of the dead" which Smith
would fear Geronimo nor the Apache
Kid was yet In his reign OF terror.
but the Apacbes were out for blood,
and the country was a formidable one,
But Smith pressed on. A hundred
miles beyond the village Of Magdalena,
beyond the famous Horse springs,
later the scene Of two never to be for
gotten massacres-beyond the old. his
( toric Turkey mountain and the land OF
pinions. where the sivery Tue Rosa
winds and has wound its way for cen.
turies untold-this valiant pioneer OF
the west ventured with his burro train
and trusty knife and rifle.
Smith, whom the author had the
pleasure of meeting shortly before bis
death, was BY nature intended as an
archaeologist, for his love Of the rare
and curious, the mysterious and an
tique, was directly responsible for bis
final determination to reside In that
land Of ruins and relics. Until the
day Of his death he never left the
hundred mile city of the dead" bui
remained for over thirty years to ex-
pl0re its mounds and caverns.
To the tireless efforts Of this sturdy
pioneer the Smithsonian institution
owes some Of its most valuable New
Mexico antiquities. 1t was he who ex
cavated the "Ruinas Encantadas." hs
who first brought to light the many
mysteries Of its grim and ghostly grot
toes.
!, Shortly before Smith died he tool
me through an excavated mound no
tar from the Mound OF Mystery Il
its several apartments, arranged OF
crude plnon limb shelves, ! viewet