ISSN 1076-9072 SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO HISTORICAL REVIEW Pasajero del Camino Real By Doña Ana County Historical Society Volume XXVIII Las Cruces, New Mexico January 2021 Doña Ana County Historical Society Publisher Board of Directors for 2021 President: Dennis Daily Southern New Mexico Historical Review Vice President: Garland Courts Secretary: Jim Eckles Sponsors Treasurer: Dennis Fuller Historian: Sally Kading Past President: Susan Krueger Bob and Cherie Gamboa At Large Board Members Frank and Priscilla Parrish Luis Rios Robert and Alice Distlehorst Sim Middleton Jose Aranda Susan Krueger and Jesus Lopez Daniel Aguilera James and Lana Eckman Bob Gamboa Buddy Ritter Merle and Linda Osborn Frank Brito Review Editor position open - contact [email protected] Review Factotum: Jim Eckles Dylan McDonald Mildred Miles Cover Drawing by Jose Cisneros (Reproduced with permission of the artist) George Helfrich The Southern New Mexico Historical Review (ISSN-1076-9072) is looking for original articles concern- Dennis Daily ing the Southwestern Border Region. Biography, local and family histories, oral history and well-edited Nancy Baker documents are welcome. Charts, illustrations or photographs are encouraged to accompany submissions. We are also in need of book reviewers, proofreaders, and someone in marketing and distribution. Barbara Stevens Current copies of the Southern New Mexico Historical Review are available for $10. If ordering by mail, Glennis Adam please include $2.00 for postage and handling. Back issues of the print versions of the Southern New Mexico Historical Review are no longer available. However, all issues since 1994 are available at the Leslie Bergloff Historical Society’s website: http://www.donaanacountyhistsoc.org. The PDF files or parts of them can be easily downloaded and printed. Correspondence regarding the Review should be directed to the Editor Carol Reynolds of the Southern New Mexico Historical Review at Doña Ana County Historical Society, P. O. Box 16045 Las Cruces, NM 88004-6045. Email messages can be sent to: [email protected] Jim Eckles Articles may be quoted with credit given to the author and the Southern New Mexico Historical Review. The opinions expressed in the Review’s articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Doña Ana County Historical Society. Southern New Mexico Historical Review Volume XXVIII Las Cruces, New Mexico January 2021 Contents Click on the article you want to go to. Articles Paso del Norte in 1817: From the Report of Father Juan Rafael Rascón Dennis Daily .............................................................(Gemoets Prize for Outstanding Article) 1 Gotham West: The Transformation of the New Mexico State University Library, 1972-1977 Dylan McDonald ..................................................................................................................... 11 Sister Onfa: Uranian Missionary to Mesilla John Buescher .........................................................................................................................33 A Working Definition Of “Historical Significance” Susan Krueger .........................................................................................................................49 The Juggling Fool: Santa Fe To Albuquerque: Toss, Catch, Step; Toss, Catch, Step...... Jon Hunner ..............................................................................................................................51 Nestor Armijo: Merchant, Rancher and Philanthropist of Las Cruces, New Mexico Jennifer Olguin ........................................................................................................................57 A Health-Seeker’s Paradise: Tuberculosis in Alamogordo and Southern New Mexico Clara Roberts ..........................................................................................................................63 The Birth of White Sands Proving Ground: Sand and Mesquite to Rocket Launches and Roadblocks Jim Eckles ................................................................................................................................73 Book Reviews Acid West: Essays by Joshua Wheeler Reviewed by Dylan McDonald .................................................................................................85 Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and 116 Days that Changed the World by Chris Wallace and Mitch Weiss. Reviewed by Jim Eckles ............................................................................................................87 Memorials Compiled by Susan Krueger .....................................................................................................89 Paso del Norte in 1817 Paso del Norte in 1817 From the Report of Father Juan Rafael Rascón Gemoets Prize for Outstanding Article By Dennis Daily First-hand accounts of our border region prior Magoffin give us important first-hand descriptions to the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, and of life on Mexico’s northern frontier before the the coming of the norteamericanos, are impor- Mexican Cession of 1848.1 tant for providing a perspective on life in the area However, they all are victims, to greater or during the two centuries of Spanish and Mexican lesser extent, of the biases inherent in their au- rule. Several journals and memoirs by U.S. citizens thors being outsiders to the cultural, political and who traveled through the region during the early religious traditions of those they are describing, 19th century are widely known and are often cited and their words must be read and interpreted with for their descriptions of Paso del Norte, the Me- this in mind. Less known are accounts by Spanish silla Valley, and environs. Among these, accounts and Mexican citizens themselves during the 17th by Zebulon Pike, Josiah Gregg and Susan Shelby through the 19th centuries. While there is a lack of The mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe as depicted by Augustus Guy de Vaudricourt, principal artist with the U.S. Boundary Commission, ca. 1851. The lithograph appeared in William H. Emory’s 1857 Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. 1, following page 92. 1 Dennis Daily Paso del Norte in 1817 published material offering this reaches of the diocese. The information provided insider’s point of view, archives in to the bishop by the individual priests varied in Mexico and New Mexico contain its detail and extent, with some hardly complying a wealth of first-hand narratives with Castañiza’s instructions and others supplying waiting to be explored.2 Trans- wonderful detail. Rascón’s report from Paso del lated here is a brief description Norte falls into the latter category. All together the of the Paso del Norte area dur- reports make up an extremely valuable snapshot of ing the early 19th century by its church and society in the north immediately prior priest, Father Juan Rafael Rascón. to Mexico gaining its independence from Spain in Paso del Norte, generally 1821. what we think of today as Ciu- Juan Rafael Rascón was born in 1783 in Santa dad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, Rosa de Cosihuiriachic, in the present-day Mexi- during the Spanish viceregal, or can state of Chihuahua. He studied philosophy at colonial, period formed a part the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán in Mexico City of the northern province of New between 1802 and 1804. He was ordained in Du- Mexico. It was not until after rango in 1806 and appointed priest of the church Mexican independence in 1821, at Paso del Norte in 1814.8 and the establishment of the state Altar detail from the previous photo. Only two years prior, the church had been of Chihuahua, that jurisdiction rior order from Bishop Castañiza of September 9, “secularized” by Durango Bishop José Miguel de for Paso del Norte was trans- 1817, that went out to all the ecclesiastical districts Irigoyen, that is converted from a mission under ferred from New Mexico to that within the vast diocese of Durango. the care of the Franciscan brothers to a parish un- new state.3 The town played an Born and raised in Mexico City, Castañiza had der the authority and administration of the Dio- important role in New Mexico’s been ordained Bishop of Durango in August 1816 cese of Durango.9 Rascón served at Paso del Norte history, most notably for serving and had only recently arrived in the northern city.6 for 15 years, until 1829 when he was named vicar as the refuge to New Mexicans Unfamiliar with the character of his new diocese, general and ecclesiastical governor of the terri- fleeing the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 he asked the priests of all the ecclesiastical districts tory of New Mexico and transferred to Santa Fe.10 and serving as the seat of New to supply information about: the geographical ex- He transferred to Chihuahua in 1833, then spent Mexican government until the tent of their curatos, including longitude, latitude, the latter part of his life in the city of Durango. He re-conquest more than a decade and circumference; the neighboring districts in all rose to high levels in the hierarchy of the church, later. It was also a crucial link on directions; distances between the head church and serving on the cathedral chapter as an advisor to the Camino Real between the outlying communities; the numbers of parishio- the bishop, and as chanter in Durango’s Baroque provinces of Nuevo Mexico and ners in the communities; the administrative struc- cathedral. Rascón died of cholera at San Miguel Nueva Vizcaya, between Santa Fe ture of the ecclesiastical