El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1920-12-15
LAKE BOTTOM
NEAR Ell PASO
OLD TOWNSHIP
BY 6. A. MARTIN.
lContInued nom PAGE Ii


tContInurd from page L.
the removal Of their dead. In every
one Of these villages there was the
regulation Catholic cemetery and gem
orally a small church They could
easily remove the church fixtures,
crude though sacred, but the cemeter-
les could not be moved without eE-
pense and the natives claimed not 20
nave the money TO take up the bodies
Of their dead and have them inferred
elsewhere The government finally
did this for them Altogether there
must have been a thousand graves i'm
the little valley and some isolated
ones still remain where they were
now beneath the bottom OF the Ia Ike.
Towns Older Than FL PasO.
This valley was settled before El
Faso was on the map, and Parajs was
town when Santa Ee was but a col
lection OF half a dozen hurs and St
Louis and Kansas City had not been
founded But the ancient glory OF the
once important stage station had de-
parted II vanished with the COM
ing Of the railroad. but was for G
number Of years the headquarters for
many cattlemen and miners and con-
tinued as a town Of considerable I'M
p0rtance until Albuquerque began 20
grow Then the business went either
70 Albuquerque or TO Fl Paso, and
Rara1e became only q shadow OF Its
former self a sleepy little village
with more vacant than occupied
houses, town with a past" which.
ike woman In the same class,
counts for very little in the world Of
today Like Tombstone, once the
metropolis OF Arizona. now asleep fin
the glory Of the past, Paraje, once the
greatest point in the territory on the
Santa Fe trail. soon became but a
memory with the New Mexicans, and
regardless Of its former luster and
lIDrw. when the Old fnu-r7 fe ffnrnT D
these days, many have 20 ask where ]
IL was and what II ever amounted 20. Z
But in the days when Paraie was at I
the zenith Of its fame, it was at the |
lthe journey Of death) as the trail I
ers" made their slow. winding way Z
across the plains towards the setting I
sun
Center Of Great Desert
Dona Ana, nearly 100 miles south. /
next place where water could be OBJ I
tanned As this was a three or four /
days Journey there was often great ]
suffering in crossing the region. Re
turning Para1e was the oasis in the I
desert after this fearful stretch OF 1
territory had been crossed and its .
memory fingered long with the travel .
ers. hence much OF its fame is due 90 |
the desert which Il bordered. And I
appropriate enough, the town dfsap- ]
desert.
It is the country between Paraje /
and Dona Ana and even below D0na i
Ana for many. many miles. that IS \
now irrigated BY the waters that are /
lmpounded over the historic old city.
The tornado has long ago ceased 4
TO lose its rerrors and passengers /
have for years crossed II in Pullman I
cars but now II has vanished com
pletely and the water that obliterates I
h. -
the work OF reclamation
Being off the main line Of the. rail- /
road distance OF several miles. ]
walled In by tail mountains and prac-
tically alone in their little green val- /
ley. the Inhabitants OF Paraje- and 4
map had advanced but little in the
past century.
A simple People.
The engineers OF the reclamation i
Cutter and Engle, nearest stations. in D
their automobiles, found the Mexican I
Inhabitants Of the villages lighting
their fires with flint and steel firing
flintlocE rifles, grinding their corn
in the ancient metatte and praying TO D
curious hand carved images set uD on
the mountain Sides as virgins and
saints for relief from their ills.
On saints days these untutored
FOLK climbed at great labor 10 the
1agots on their backs, to build fires
TO light the way OF the saints into
their villages.
They have scattered out among
their kind IN the other little settle
ments up and down the vaIlew and +
forefathers.
The largest population OF any OF
the villages inundated was about SEQ
souls Cantarecio had about that
many people, while Cantadero had
about 300 and Paraje about 200. The
others had less. The town Of Zapata ]
had been gradually abandoned 10 a
large extent and the population had
ennigrared TO the opposite side Of the
river to Cantarecio, where there was
a good sized adobe church and from
which point the railroad could be
either in high water OF low Z
Old Fort Craig.
There was no population at old Fort
Craig II was abandoned many wears
ago. after tie Indians were driven
back onto tie reservations, During
the civil war a very hot fight was
experienced at the old fort, which
y as captured by the Confederates
from the regular troops and later re-
captured by the federals when they
drove the Con1ecerates back out OF
New Mexico and into Texas. Several
we're killed in the battle; some OF
the adobe buildings wrecked by the
cannon in the two battles are still in
ruins at the bottom Of the lake, have
Ing never been rebuilt nor destroyed,
but allowed to remain as mememtoes
II the battle. From out the old fort
many Indian campaigns were started
and officers OF the United States army
who gained fame in the civil war and
afterwards were stationed there, IN
Guiding Lawton and Miles when they
were on their campaign after &C.
-ouimo.
Only a part OF the old fort IS COW
cred by the waters Of the lake, as 70
stood upon a hill mostly above the