El Morro National Monument--where graffiti becomes history

by Martha Hutchens

El Morro National Monument, Martha Hutchens

Those of you who have read my other blog posts may not be surprised to learn that I grew up in southeast Missouri. This heavily agricultural area used to be a swamp. It receives an average of 46 inches of rain per year. The humidity is intense.

Now, imagine moving from that climate to New Mexico. The air is dry, and even today you are wise to take water with you if you are driving through the more rural areas. Now stretch your imagination a little further. What if you are traveling by horse and wagon, or by foot. Water stops that are only an hour or two apart today would be up to a week apart in those conditions.

Pool at El Morro, Martha Hutchens

Then you see El Morro (headland or bluff) standing in the distance, and you know water lies at the foot of it. The pool at the base of this mesa collected water run off from the cliffs around it. Because the pool is in the shade of the cliffs, the water is cool and even more refreshing.

Inscriptions at El Morro, Martha Hutchens

El Morro National Monument has been a stopping point for travelers for centuries, and the soft rock has convinced more than 2000 to leave their mark.

Petroglyphs at El Morro, Martha Hutchens

Ancestral Pueblo people founded a village on top of these cliffs, and their petroglyphs remain behind. It is estimated that as many as 1500 people may have lived in this village, and that the structures had up to 875 rooms. Some structures may have been as high as three stories.

Oñate inscription at El Morro, Martha Hutchens

Juan de Oñate signed the rock in 1605 (15 years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.) He was the first governor of New Mexico under Spain, and is rightly reviled by the Native Americans in the area, for his massacre of the the Acoma people in 1599. He passed El Morro on his way back from what he thought was the Pacific Ocean. In fact, he only got as far as the Gulf of California. It is perhaps a signal of his feelings toward the Native Americans that he wrote his inscription over a pre-existing petroglyph.

Two more Spanish governors signed El Morro in the early 1600’s, Don Juan de Eulate in 1620 and Francisco Manuel de Silva Nieto in 1629. Eulate’s inscription describes himself as a gentleman, but the word was later scratched out. Unfortunately, this editor didn’t sign his name.

In 1632, a Spanish soldier named Luján wrote in stone that he “they passed by . . . to the avenging of the death of Father Letrado,” a priest killed by the Zuni people.

In 1680, the Pueblo people revolted against Spanish rule and the Spaniards retreated from New Mexico. In 1692, General Don Diego de Vargas returned to Santa Fe and reconquered New Mexico, mostly peacefully. He commemorates the event by signing El Morro, where he notes that he has “conquered . . . all of New Mexico at his own expense.” Maybe he thought the Spanish crown should have paid for it?

Several other Spanish inscriptions appear on the rock, with the last dated 1774.

The first American inscription reads, “O. R. March 19, 1836. His simple initials remind us of the many signatures of average people.

In 1848, Mexico ceded New Mexico to the United States as part of the settlement of the Mexican-American War, and in 1850 it was officially organized as a territory. This led to a whole new set of inscriptions on El Morro. Traders, emigrants, soldiers, and others passed by this bluff with its inscriptions and added their own names.

In 1849, Lt. J. H. Simpson and R. H. Kern visited and copied the inscriptions present at that time. Of course, they felt compelled to note their own presence. They carved the following, “Lt. J. H. Simpson & R. H. Kern artist visited and copied these insciptions, September 17 & 18, 1849” After they finished the their writing, they realized they left out the “r” in inscriptions, and inserted it with a editing mark. Talk about your long-lived typos!

Breckinridge inscription at El Morro, Martha Hutchens

One of the more interesting chapters of U.S. Army’s history is their brief experiment with camels as pack animals in the southwest. Four of the men involved in this experiment signed El Morro, E. Pen Long, F. Engle Jr, Byrn, and their leader, P. Gilmer Breckinridge. I assume the camels found the pool at El Morro as refreshing as the humans did.

Udell inscription at El Morro, Martha Hutchens

L. J. Rose led the first wagon train along a new trail crossing New Mexico territory to reach California in 1858. They stopped at the water pool by El Morro, and ten of them signed the wall, including Rose, John Udell, and America Frances Baley, and Sarah Fox, who was only twelve years old at the time. Nearly 500 miles farther along the trail, this train would be attacked by Mojave warriors. Sarah Fox was shot with an arrow and witnessed her father’s death. The caravan’s wagons were burned and the people passed El Morro again on their return to Albuquerque. However, the next year they completed their journey to California along a different trail.

In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt designated El Morro as a national monument, though New Mexico would not become a state for another six years. Since then, much work has been done to protect the inscriptions on the rock, because this soft rock that is so easy to carve also erodes easily. During the depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Works Administration, which hired men to make a path to the top of El Morro so that visitors could see the remains of the village that once occupied this area. These 48 men also left their mark on the bluff, though not in writing.

If you visit New Mexico, I highly recommend a stop at El Morro, where a thousand years of history is written in rock.

Martha Hutchens is a transplanted southerner who lives in Los Alamos, NM where she is surrounded by history so unbelievable it can only be true. She won the 2019 Golden Heart for Romance with Religious and Spiritual Elements. A former analytical chemist and retired homeschool mom, Martha is frequently found working on her latest knitting project when she isn’t writing.

Martha’s current novella is set in southeast Missouri during World War II. It is free to her newsletter subscribers. You can subscribe to my newsletter at my website, www.marthahutchens.com

After saving for years, Dot Finley's brother finally paid a down payment for his own land—only to be drafted into World War II. Now it is up to her to ensure that he doesn't lose his dream while fighting for everyone else's. No one is likely to help a sharecropper's family.

Nate Armstrong has all the land he can manage, especially if he wants any time to spend with his four-year-old daughter. Still, he can't stand by and watch the Finley family lose their dream. Especially after he learns that the banker's nephew has arranged to have their loan called.

Necessity forces them to work together. Can love grow along with crops?

Grand Canyon National Park

by Jennifer Uhlarik

So…I had the great fortune to take a two-week road trip with my family this summer. We were able to see a lot of great things on our cross-country travels, stopping in several states along the way, but our big destination was Arizona’s Grand Canyon. I’d been to see it when I was roughly 10 years old, but neither my husband nor my 18-year-old son had been. So that was the anchor location that we built our trip around, and while we didn’t attempt going down into the canyon, we were each awed by the splendor and beauty we saw from the South Rim. If you have never been, let me just say it is so worth the trip.

Grand Canyon At Sunset

© Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Another view of Grand Canyon
© Jennifer Uhlarik

Here’s a few facts. Grand Canyon is 277 miles long. At its widest point, it is eighteen miles wide, and at its narrowest, it is four miles wide. It is approximately one mile deep. Temperatures at the South Rim can range from 30-40 degrees in winter, with a good chance of snow at times…to 100 degrees or above during summer, though the nighttime temperatures can fall quite a bit, causing a big discrepancy. Inside the canyon, temperatures are known to reach 120 degrees easily.

Ancestral Puebloan granaries high above the Colorado  River at Nankoweap Creek, Grand Canyon.
(Photo: Drenaline, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 3.0)

Grand Canyon was the seventeenth national park to be established within the United States, and was granted that honor in 1919. But long before it was discovered by white men, Grand Canyon and the surrounding area was home to various tribes of Indians. Ancient Puebloan Indians, the ancestors of the modern Pueblo people, were thought to be some of the earliest settlers to Grand Canyon. Like I said, my family didn’t hike into the canyon, so we didn’t see them in person, but this photo of Ancient Puebloan granaries found within Grand Canyon indicate the Indians’ presence from long ago. In addition to the Ancient Puebloans, the Cohonina, the Sinagua, the Hualapai, and Havasupai—among many others—lived around or in the canyon long before the white man came along.

With that in mind, it was a real pleasure for us to see an authentic display of Native American dances

put on by a group of very talented folks. We had a truly amazing time watching the various dancers in their colorful regalia as they performed a traditional grass dance, hoop dance, and others for the park goers.

A Young Native American man performs a dance
honoring the Navajo Code Talkers of WWII.
© Jennifer Uhlarik

A young girl and her grandmother perform a traditional women's dance.
© Jennifer Uhlarik

A Native American Man performs the Grass Dance
© Jennifer Uhlarik

A young woman performs the Butterfly Dance
© Jennifer Uhlarik

A Native American man performs a traditional
Hoop Dance.
© Jennifer Uhlarik

Francisco Vazquez de Coronado

So how did the white or European settlers come across Grand Canyon? In the mid-1500’s, the Spanish found their way to the area as they searched for the Seven Cities of Cibola under orders from Conquistador Francisco Vazquez de Coronado. The small band of Spanish soldiers followed a Hopi guide about a third of the way into the canyon, but were forced to turn back because they lacked water. In their notes on the foray, they expressed concern that their guide purposely didn’t show them watering holes along the way for fear that the newcomers would stay. In 1776, Spanish priests returned, this time to the North Rim, as they searched for a way to reach California from Santa Fe, while others spent time attempting (unsuccessfully) to convert the Havasupai Indians to Christianity.

In 1826, a group of American trappers and mountain men traipsed into the area and “discovered” Grand Canyon. By the mid 1800’s, Lieutenant Joseph Ives led a military survey party into the canyon, only to deem the area “altogether valueless” and a “profitless locality.” (Doesn’t that make you laugh when you consider that five million people visit Grand Canyon National Park each year?)

Grand Canyon at Morning
© Jennifer Uhlarik

John Wesley Powell

In 1869, John Wesley Powell, who later founded and ran the U.S. Geological Society, explored the Colorado River with a team of men using wooden boats, and went back to explore the river again in 1871. Soon after, lead, zinc, asbestos, and copper deposits were found in the canyon, which led many to stake mining claims across the next two decades. Unfortunately for them, the process of mining in such inhospitable conditions proved to be difficult, if not deadly, and Grand Canyon finally shifted from a miner’s playground to one of the most sought-out tourist attractions within the United States.

There are lots of great things to do at Grand Canyon today. Both the North and South Rim areas are run by the National Park Service today. You can hike or ride a mule into the canyon, or white-water raft down the Colorado River. Helicopters rides are available for a price to those who want to see an up-closer view of the canyon floor without the hike or mule ride to get there. Hiking along the rim provides many scenic and beautiful views, and there are many historic buildings with interesting stories to be explored along the South Rim. The North Rim is much more rugged with fewer services than the South Rim. And the Western Rim, which is run by the Haulapai Indian Tribe rather than the National Park Service, is where tourists can go to experience the “Skywalk”—where they can walk out over the Grand Canyon on a crystal-clear pathway that provides a view into the canyon like no other. (Unfortunately, as one who has a very healthy fear of heights, I doubt I’d be able to experience the Skywalk or a hike/mule ride into the canyon).

Rugged terrain at Grand Canyon
© Jennifer Uhlarik

It’s your turn: Have you ever been to Grand Canyon? Did you stay on the rim or did you hike into the canyon? If you haven’t been, would you hike down? Why or why not?

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen, when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won five writing competitions and finaled in two other competitions. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, teenaged son, and four fur children.