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The Jemez Mountains
A Cultural and Natural History
The Jemez Mountains are a quintessential New Mexico landscape. For centuries, Pueblo, Spanish, and Anglo cultures have mixed and melded here. Many ancient villages are scattered across the mesas and in the canyons below the Valles Caldera—the crater of a giant, slumbering volcano. The rocks and trees of this landscape tell stories of eruptions, lava flows, droughts, floods, forest fires, and hot springs damming a river. People tell stories of conquistadores, pueblos, and priests, of battles for land and water, of farming and sheep herding, and of raiders, rustlers, forest rangers, and hippies.
This book recounts some of these fascinating stories in forty brief chapters, with more than a hundred photographs, maps, and drawings. Matched photographs of the same views taken up to 150 years apart attest to striking change and apparent stasis. Major alterations have occurred in some places over the past two centuries due to human activity, and increasing climate change threatens further transformation.
For those new to the Jemez Mountains, these stories and images, told in forty brief chapters, provide an introduction to the cultural and natural history of the area. Residents and longtime aficionados of the Jemez will find both familiar and surprising stories and will gain a renewed sense of the magnificence of this place.
Thomas Swetnam offers a fascinating collection of historical anecdotes and natural history insights in The Jemez Mountains. Amid a parade of unusual personalities and extraordinary events, we learn not just about the land but about the varied lenses through which people saw it and saw each other. The result is a composite portrait of one of New Mexico’s most diverse and best-loved regions.’—William deBuys, author of Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range, Revised and Expanded Edition
Thomas Swetnam grew up in the Jemez Mountains as the son of the Forest Service’s Jemez District Ranger before moving to his science career at the University of Arizona, and he has now come full circle as the author of The Jemez Mountains: A Cultural and Natural History. Swetnam recounts dozens of stories, legends, myths, and historical accounts of life in the Jemez Mountains over the last nearly five hundred years. Topics include personal family stories, Pueblo life, the Spanish entrada, early settlers, ranching, mining, forestry, military actions, banditry, religion, scientific studies, recreational development, natural disasters, wildlife encounters (think grizzly bears!), and many more. His book provides amazingly detailed insights into the peoples of the Jemez Mountains and their interactions with each other and their environment.’—Robert Parmenter, former chief of science and resource stewardship for the Valles Caldera National Preserve
Thomas W. Swetnam is a Regents’ Professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he studied land-use history and forest and fire ecology. He lives in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART I. STORIES FROM PAST CENTURIES
Chapter 1. The Hemish Footprint and Spanish Entrada
Chapter 2. San José de los Jémez Mission
Chapter 3. Pueblo Revolts and Battles of Reconquest
Chapter 4. Treasures of the Spanish Queen Mine
Chapter 5. Hillers and the Stevensons in the Jemez
Chapter 6. Myths and Legends of Montezuma in New Mexico
Chapter 7. A Visit to the Valles in 1886
Chapter 8. John Wesley Powell’s Jemez Dam Dreams
Chapter 9. Dry Goods, Saloons, and Sheep
Chapter 10. First Automobile in Jemez Springs
Chapter 11. Whose Lands Are the Jemez Mountains?
Chapter 12. The Santa Fe Northwestern Railroad
Chapter 13. The Jemez National Forest
Chapter 14. Peeled Ponderosa Pines
Chapter 15. Four Jemez Mountains Grizzly Bear Stories
PART II. STORIES FROM RICHARD BAXTER TOWNSHEND
Chapter 16. Wild West Days of the Jemez Valley
Chapter 17. Penitentes in the Jemez Valley
Chapter 18. Correr El Gallo at Walatowa
Chapter 19. Presbyterians in the Jemez
Chapter 20. A Visit to the Rio Cebolla in 1903
Chapter 21. Horse Logging Above Jemez Springs
PART III. SODA DAM, GEOLOGY, AND FLOODS
Chapter 22. Soda Dam, Logs, and Floods
Chapter 23. The Many Soda Dams and Lakes of the Valles Caldera
Chapter 24. The Blasting of Soda Dam
Chapter 25. The Caves of Soda Dam
Chapter 26. The Explosion Craters of Banco Bonito
Chapter 27. Great Floods of the Rio Jemez
Chapter 28. Fossils in the Jemez
PART IV. FIRE, FORESTS, AND COTTONWOODS
Chapter 29. Forests and People on the Southern Jemez Plateau
Chapter 30. The Era of Runaway Wildfires
Chapter 31. Bald Mountains in the Jemez
Chapter 32. Cerro Pelado Fire and Using All the Tools
Chapter 33. Cottonwoods and Junipers in the Valley
Chapter 34. Climate Change in the Jemez
PART V. HOTELS, HOT SPRINGS, HIPPIES, CAMPERS, AND PRIESTS
Chapter 35. Hotels, Mines, and The Sulphurs
Chapter 36. The Many Camps at Battleship Rock
Chapter 37. Turkeys in the Jemez
Chapter 38. Servants of the Paraclete
Chapter 39. Hippies and Hot Springs in the Jemez
Chapter 40. Sierra de los Valles
Notes
References
List of Photo and Illustration Credits
Index
