Crumbling adobe wails. Lifeless parade grounds. A rotting stump
that once meant a proud, defiant flagpole. That's the ghost fort
today that once was stirring Ojo Caliente. It lies here on a
lonesome cow range, at the upper end of a rugged box canyon.
No more cavalrymen swinging to their saddles. No more sullen
Apaches camped about nor skulking in the sparsely cedared hills.
The Ojo Caliente stronghold was built on a slope above a branch
of Alamosa Creek. Main part 600 feet long, 150 wide. Thick
adobe walls. Flat earthen roofs. Deep-set doors and windows.
Corner fireplaces. It's all melting away now, almost gone.
But out of here swearing, grim-faced cavalrymen galloped to fight
Apaches. Maybe the red men had caught a lone prospector, tied
him across his own kitchen stove and built a fire in it. Maybe
they'd ambushed another cavalry troop in some defile. Or, as it
really happened, Victorio had just attacked the horse guard of
the Ninth Cavalry half a mile from here, killing or wounding eight
troopers and running off 46 horses.
On this now-dim old parade ground, Geronimo, trapped by Indian
Agent Clum, made his first surrender. A prisoner here, Geronimo
saved a baby girl, Agnes Kelly, from drowning in a ditch. The
baby's father had been one of a cavalry detail escorting a
stagecoach in which rode a pretty girl... marriage and baby
Agnes.
From this fort Agent Clum took 453 captive Apaches on a three-
week trek to the San Carlos reservation in Arizona for the
brewing of greater trouble.
Ojo Caliente stands between two prehistoric Indian pueblos.
There are others near. Long ago these places built up slowly and
died away slowly. It became a land of ghosts for seven or eight
centuries, except for an occasional Apache encampment. And
today once more ghosts have it all to themselves.
To break in upon the unearthly stillness of Ojo Caliente, drive to
Winston, 37 miles from Truth or Consequences, and go 19 miles
north on the main-traveled road. Watch for the ere adobe ruins
off on your right.
that once meant a proud, defiant flagpole. That's the ghost fort
today that once was stirring Ojo Caliente. It lies here on a
lonesome cow range, at the upper end of a rugged box canyon.
No more cavalrymen swinging to their saddles. No more sullen
Apaches camped about nor skulking in the sparsely cedared hills.
The Ojo Caliente stronghold was built on a slope above a branch
of Alamosa Creek. Main part 600 feet long, 150 wide. Thick
adobe walls. Flat earthen roofs. Deep-set doors and windows.
Corner fireplaces. It's all melting away now, almost gone.
But out of here swearing, grim-faced cavalrymen galloped to fight
Apaches. Maybe the red men had caught a lone prospector, tied
him across his own kitchen stove and built a fire in it. Maybe
they'd ambushed another cavalry troop in some defile. Or, as it
really happened, Victorio had just attacked the horse guard of
the Ninth Cavalry half a mile from here, killing or wounding eight
troopers and running off 46 horses.
On this now-dim old parade ground, Geronimo, trapped by Indian
Agent Clum, made his first surrender. A prisoner here, Geronimo
saved a baby girl, Agnes Kelly, from drowning in a ditch. The
baby's father had been one of a cavalry detail escorting a
stagecoach in which rode a pretty girl... marriage and baby
Agnes.
From this fort Agent Clum took 453 captive Apaches on a three-
week trek to the San Carlos reservation in Arizona for the
brewing of greater trouble.
Ojo Caliente stands between two prehistoric Indian pueblos.
There are others near. Long ago these places built up slowly and
died away slowly. It became a land of ghosts for seven or eight
centuries, except for an occasional Apache encampment. And
today once more ghosts have it all to themselves.
To break in upon the unearthly stillness of Ojo Caliente, drive to
Winston, 37 miles from Truth or Consequences, and go 19 miles
north on the main-traveled road. Watch for the ere adobe ruins
off on your right.
| OJO CALLENTE |