By Jaymi Firestone
The Land of Enchantment features rolling hills, prairie grasslands, steep Rocky Mountains, and canyons that encase some of the most beautiful landscapes. The state is full of state parks and forests, preserves, oases and national monuments.
If you’ve lived here long, you’ve probably explored some amazing nature spots. There’s one in particular that encases some of New Mexico’s most breathtaking landscapes.
Take a look at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park near Alamogordo!
The fully-preserved history behind this one is what is particularly interesting.
Eclipsed by the Sacramento Mountains, this park is truly a natural hidden wonder of 640 acres that preserve ancient canyon secrets of bloodshed and battles over land.
The Mescalero Apache people called this breathtaking canyon home as far back as 1401. This tribe of Natives lived tipis and survived on crops they grew and animals they hunted. Their arrowheads, drills, spears, and stone axes have been found in the canyon over the years.
The Apache were the natives that the Spanish explorers encountered and battled. They used the Dog Head trail in the canyon as a roadway as they battled the explorers and later Anglo-Americans settlers.
The conflicts between American settlers and the Apache happened largely between 1848 and 1912. Eventually the American settlers were victorious and forced the Mescalero Apache from the land they had called home for many years.
This is largely because the American settlers began establishing homesteads as early as 1885, by Francois Jean Rochas, who built his home at the mouth of Dog Canyon. The home was only 2 rooms made of rock and adobe. A style of building that was learned from the Natives that were forced from the area. Rochas planted an orchard and built retaining walls on the ridges that flank the canyon. His home is marked by a partly reconstructed cabin on the interpretive trail that is west of the park’s visitor center and there for the public to visit.
The park’s namesake, Oliver Milton Lee, arrived in the area from Buffalo Gap, Texas in 1893. He established a 320-acre ranch on land just south of Dog Canyon.
Lee built a ranch house, barns, corrals, reservoir and slaughterhouse on his land. He also developed an irrigation system that provided water for his ranch from the stream in the canyon.
Remnants of the water system can be seen at the park.
Oliver Lee later held office in the New Mexico Senate and continued operating his ranches until his own death in 1941.
He was able to use his political influence to improve the area by bringing the railroad to Alamogordo in 1898, just 5 short years after he established his homestead in the area. Lee sold his ranch in 1907.
After a series of several owners, the ranch lands were made a part of the White Sands National Monument in 1939.
Management of the 440-acre Dog Canyon tract was transferred to the State Parks Division in 1983, three years after the establishment of the parcel to the north of the canyon. Ownership of the southern part of the park was transferred to the state of New Mexico in 1998.
It’s a piece of American history waiting to be visited. The hiking trails are beautiful, and you’ll feel like you’ve stepped back to the early settlers’ days of New Mexico.
If you’d like to know a little more about Oliver Milton Lee and his Wild West days, read this story about a double-murder he was suspected of being involved in!
