On the El Paso & SouthWestern RR

El Paso, TX

    In inspecting a map of New Mexico I noticed a very straight road from near Rodeo, which is in the SW corner of the state, directly across the southern end of the state just above its border with Mexico to near El Paso, Texas. As it turns out, New Mexico State Route 9 (or NM9) follows the railroad bed of the former El Paso & Southwestern Railroad.

    There are only three towns along the route: from west to east they are Animas, Hachita, and Columbus. Animas has a small high school where the sports teams are the Panthers. Hachita is the most run-down of the three, with its community center likely having been vandalized some time ago but not repaired. And, even though Columbus is c65 miles from the Rio Grande (riverbed), it was a mix of old and new buildings. (I skipped taking a photo of the former jail since it was also an antique shop at one point.) Did stop at the post office, which was rather new, to see about doing a change of address, but the counter personnel were on their lunch break. [But there is a state park at Columbus with limited hookups for RVs.]

    As you can see from the New Mexico Historical Marker, at a spot about 9 mi east of Animas, there was once a siding called Playas Siding. The El Paso & SW RR was built in 1902 to transport copper from the Bisbee open pit mine eastward, likely to smelters in Texas. [Click once or twice to enlarge.]

    Speaking of the Phelps Dodge copper mine in Bisbee, I took three photos on my way from Sierra Vista to Douglas. The 1st one to the right show water with what are likely toxic substances at the bottom of a fairly deep pit.

 

 

 

    This second photo looks up the creek which flows out of Bisbee into the Lavender Pit, the name of the pit in the photo above.

 

 

 

 

    And here's a plaque which is dedicated to Harrison M. Lavender, who hatched the plan for extracting the low-grade copper around Bisbee and converting it into a usable grade of copper. Note that he died at age 62. I wonder how safe the town's water supply was during his lifetime.

    Even the last half of the drive from Douglas, AZ, to Rodeo, NM, paralleled an old RR bed -- likely the EP & SW RR. And just north of the town of Apache, AZ, there is a monument errected by the townspeople in 1934 commemorating the surrender of Geronimo on 4 September 1886 about 2 miles away in Skeleton Canyon. While the plaque isn't totally readable, here's a Closeup; and here's more information from the parties to the surrender. With that, the Indian Wars in the United States were over.

    I worried that I had missed my chance to get any photos of the culverts under the EP & SW RR, but came upon the culvert to the right, apparently built in 1906. Am no structural engineer, but the culvert still looks fairly sturdy.

    Not so for the structure in the next shot. Notice that most of the horizontal members running from pier or foundation parallel with the tracks are missing from this bridge over a dry wash.
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    And, no, the insects hanging out in Josua Trees don't have TV. The three stalks extending upward from the bushy portion of the tree make it easy for insects and perhaps a few bees to find the blossoms.

 

    At about the 100-mile signpost, there was a notable change in the mountains; those to the northwest still had sharp peaks -- in other words, they had not been worn down by time, weather, of geologic forces.

 

 

 

    And this shot to the southeast & east shows mountains which have more evidence of wear due to weather over time.

 

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    In case you were wondering where the Border Patrol was along NM9, they were everywhere: patroling the road, manning a small radar at the edge of a large flat area which extended well into Mexico, riding ATVs along the road looking for footprints, and even walking some of the dirt roads in search of illegal immigrants.

 

Sa 19 Feb Route: El Paso - Sunland Park, NM - El Paso - Horizon City - Sunland Park, TX

Su 20 Feb Route: Anthony, NM - Las Cruces