enterprise tendencies of all American business after the Civil War." First with land, then with its bounty (timber, stock raising, agriculture, and mining), individuals like Thomas B. Catron, Stephen B. Elkins, and others created an economic pattern of resource use that would reach into the Tularosa basin and surround White Sands.[1]
The proximity of northern New Mexico to the railroad lines building southwestward to California drew the early attention of Anglo ranchers, miners, merchants, and political appointees. Very little energy was expended by outside interests in southeastern New Mexico, except for the large cattle ranches owned by Texans migrating westward. Drawn by federal contracts to supply beef to soldiers at the various military posts along the Pecos and Tularosa rivers, and to Indians on the Mescalero Apache reservation, the ranchers had little time or money to invest in larger development schemes. This would change in the 1880s, when two New York brothers, Charles and John Eddy, came by stagecoach to the Pecos River valley to operate a cattle ranch. Charles Eddy saw the potential for railroad transportation throughout the region, and promoted community building in Carlsbad (which he first named for himself) and in Roswell. Among Eddy's signal contributions was establishment of a large irrigation district near Carlsbad, which by the early twentieth century provided economic stability throughout the area and a model for future water projects.[2]
While agriculture prospered in the Pecos valley, the Eddy brothers wondered if similar applications of technology, capital, and expertise could generate prosperity to the west in the Tularosa basin. Gold strikes in the Sierra Blanca had created the boomtown of White Oaks, while timber harvests had begun in the Sacramento mountains. Charles Eddy approached a group of investors in El Paso, Texas, suggesting the merits of a rail line between that border town and the mines. By 1897 he had garnered enough support for construction of the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad (EPNE), which by 1901 had established its terminus with the Rock Island and Pacific Railroad line at Santa Rosa, New Mexico.[3]
The arrival of the EPNE into the Tularosa basin had the same effect as did all railroad intrusions into the isolated interior West. Natural obstacles to transportation evaporated, and eager promoters provided handsome investments in search of quick returns. Yet the variables of aridity, heat, and distance kept the miracle of Carlsbad from spreading throughout Charles Eddy's new domain. The railroad created a new townsite some fifteen miles east of the dunes, named Alamogordo ("fat cottonwood" in Spanish), where for $5,000 the EPNE had purchased Oliver Lee's Alamo ranch and its
- ↑ Ibid., 146; Cynthia Secor-Welsh, introduction to Miguel A. Otero, My Life on the Frontier, 1864–1882 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987 reprint), xvii, xx.
- ↑ Transcript of news feature by Mrs. Tom Charles, Alamogordo, NM, April 6, 1942, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Charles Papers, MS 18, File 3-2, Rio Grande Historical Collections, New Mexico State University Library, Las Cruces (cited as Charles Papers, NMSU).
- ↑ Ibid.
