Organ
Mountains
In August of
1852, after traveling through New Mexico, Mexico, California, and
Arizona while overseeing the boundary survey, John Russell Bartlett
returned to El Paso. While he was wrapping up the final details of
the survey in New Mexico he took a short excursion to Fort Fillmore in
the vicinity of Mesilla near the end of September. While there he
traveled out to the Organ Mountains to examine a silver mine and make
some sketches. Here is a lithograph from his book:
Excerpts
from Bartlett's journal:
The
"Sierra de los Organos," or Organ Mountains, are so named
from their pinnacled summits and sides, which resemble the pipes of an
organ. They are of a light gray granite, and rise to the height
of 3000 feet above the river. The range runs north and south,
and joins the El Paso Mountains, not far from the town of that
name...From the place where we had halted and lunched, I took a sketch
of these mountains and of the defile through which I had passed.
A small stream flowed near us, marked by a line of fine large
oaks. Midway between this spot and the mountains rises a bold
mass of white granite.
The
images and text below were provided by Jerry E. Mueller, author of the book "An Annotated Guide to the
Artwork of the United States Boundary Commission, 1850-1853,"
My thanks to Dr. Mueller for showing me several Bartlett locations and
submitting this image set.
-Tom Jonas
Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library
Bartlett made this sketch, "Water Falls--Organ
Mountains," on September 27, 1852, during a day-long excursion to the
Organ Mountains of southern New Mexico. Bartlett writes,
"I then took my rifle and walked a couple of miles through it and the
deep gorges which indent the ridge. In this ramble I passed a beautiful
little stream, which, rising far within the defile, wound its way along
through many intricacies, where it had worn for itself a deep bed, until
it tumbled over the rocks in a single fall of some fifty feet. Although
the quantity of water was small, the fall was exceedingly picturesque."
Photo by Jerry E. Mueller
The vantage point of this photo is on the lip of the lower entrenched section
of Fillmore Canyon, easily accessible from the La Cueva unit of the Dripping
Springs Recreational Area east of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Although the falls
are typically dry most of the year, moderately large volumes of water are
discharged during the rainy season of unusually wet years, including 2006,
when this photo was taken on September 3. The view is towards the northeast,
where the broad sections of the upper canyon grade into the rugged granite and
quartz monzonite spires and columns that dominate this portion of the Organ
Mountains.
