El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-09-29
THE ROAD TO LAS CRUCES
AND WHY THE DELAY
People Are Urged to Present Their
Case Before Commissioners
Court OctOber'4.
Editor FL Paso Herald:


Editor FL Paso Herald
In reference to your Las Cruces cor
respondents letter desiring to set the
people of Las Cruces right on the sub
ject of the road from Mesquite to An
thony and referring to my letter of the
18th, 1 desire to say I have found the
people and taxpayers Of Las Cruces
with their heads and hearts both right
on this proposition. The people of the
lower valley are aroused and will be
heard from this time forth on the un-
necessary delay of building this road.
When the Canine Real survey was
made, which left the straight line
which was originally surveyed by the
A T. & S. f. r. r. by expert engineers
and is conceded to be the best line
through the valley for railroad and
therefore the best and shortest, easiest
and most inexpensive of construction
for wagon road which has been adj
hered to on this Canine Real from
Mesilla Park to Mesquite and from An
thony to Ell Paso-and went away and
made a right angle off in the sand
hills, increasing the distance several
miles, it is certain it was not done in
the interests of the road or the people
of Dona Ana county or of New Mexico
who will ultimately foot the bills for
this agregrious mistake.
this diversion from the straight and
easy path, but somebody influenced
this survey and somebody is causing
the unnecessary, uncalled for delay In
the building of this road, and it is the
business Of the people to investigate
first, who the guilty party or parties
are and whence their motive.
The people of Dona Ana county
pledged the people of Ell Paso county
some wears ago that thew would iOIn
them in building road from Las Cru
ces to Ell Paso. FL Paso is carrying
out her part of this agreement in GOOD
faith and is constructing road that
has been pronounced by the govern
ment engineer, now on duty at the ag-
ricultural college, to be good road.
This same engineer, who is detailed
by the government as a good roads eX-
pert, to construct sample roads on the
college grounds, has also pronounced
on the location of the road from Mes
quite to Anthony along the rightofway
of the A L. & S. F. railway as petit
toned for by the people as being the
ideal location, and the diversion into
the sand hills as being bad. Of course,
we hail with delight the promised
coming of the territorial engineer to
go over these two lines in the inter-
eSts of the territory, and we who have
investigated the matter have no fears
but that his report will be in line with
the engineeR above quoted and the en-
gineerS of the A. T. & S. +. Railway
company and the judgment Of all the
people who live south of Mesquite,
with the exception of parties whose
personal interest may warp their judg-
ment.
The original Earlham ditch was To-
Gated from the Thompson ranch to An
thony a distance of some six miles, in
these sand hills, where the Canine
Real has been surveyed. 1t was main
tanned there for years and finally
abandoned md junction made with
the Three Saints ditch in the valley
for the reason it could not be main
tanned across the arroyos without
number that were filled with water
rushing from the mountains on the
melting of every snow and every rain.
If any citizen desires to know the
truth Of the history of this ditch and
the trouble in maintaining it, ask Dave
Jones, Jim Thompson, G. W. Mossman
/ or any owner of stock in the original
Earlham ditch, and they will teu you
that no ditch or no road can be main
tanned where the Canine Real is now
surveyed. The ditch was easier to
maintain than a road could possibly
be, for the reason that the ditch would
carry portion of the water and this
a road would not do.
But why spend any more time in
discussing the feasibility of the two
roads when the matter is settled in the
mind of every person who has exam
ined the situation, whether he be ex-
pert or layman. The question now for
Dona Ana county to settle is whether
we are going to allow spectators, land
grabbers, and corporations, by their
agents and paid attorneys, to longer
Ill - L,,.1 l. t. 20 rf1n
end that they may be able to secure
a few more thousand acres. of valley
land at from $3.50 to $40 per acre and
sell the same at from $50 TO 500 an
acre, as they have been doing in the
past two years. These spectators
have their agents in the field and
their attorneys watching the records
and are getting all the water they de-
sire for their thousands of acres of
land from the government diversion
dam at Leasburg, while settlers and
homemakers are not allowed to have
a single drop and their orchards and
crops are dying, and yet the govern
ment policy in constructing these re-
clamation reservoirs is not to allow
any one man to have over 40 acres of
water on government land and not
over $50 of private land under the Ele-
plant Butte project. But the law and
priority of right contracts with the ex-
listing bitches and other technicalities
have been and are being used to give
these large land holders water for
thousands upon thousands of acres.
and when we come to the front with
definite proposition to complete Dona
Anas sacred obligation to Ell Paso to
complete this highway, we are met by
the agents of these same men and by
one means or another the attempt it
wet blanketed and side tracked.
We now serve notice that the people
living south of Mesquite will be at
the commissioners court in the first
week of October to demand that the
road be opened as petitioned for by the
largest and strongest petition that ever
went before that body for any public
road The people of the west side of
the Rio Grande, known as the West
ern Mesilla Valley Farmers union" at
a regular meeting, passed a resolution
asking that this petition be granted
and the road constructed, and they
propose to be heard There is one
half of the Mesilla valley area and fer
tility on the west side of the river and
the population of the La Mesa school