headquarters in Lufkin, Texas, as part of the Southern Region, Region 8. In 1974 the Forest Service renamed the Cross Timbers National Grassland the Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland to honor our 36th president and Texas native. On July 1, 1970, the forest supervisor's office in Amarillo was closed, and headquarters for grassland districts in the Southwestern Region of the United States were located at Albuquerque, New Mexico, with rangers stationed in Clayton, New Mexico, Cheyenne, Oklahoma, and Texline, Texas. An administrative merger in 1979 of the Cibola National Forest with the national grasslands into the Cibola National Forest and Grasslands officially recognized the management realities.
The Southwestern Region still continues to manage one Land Utilization Project. This is the 240 acre Cuba – Rio Puerco LUP (NM-22) just to the north of the town of Cuba, New Mexico. It is administered from the forest supervisor’s headquarters of the Santa Fe National Forest in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is the location of the Cuba Ranger District office. Six of the 15 Land Utilization Projects transferred to the Southwestern Region to manage in 1954 were not incorporated into national grasslands by 1962. One of those is the Cuba-Rio Puerco mentioned above. Public Law 87-631 (76-432) of September 5, 1962 formally added four projects located on New Mexico grant lands to the Carson and to the Santa Fe National Forests as noted in the chart below. Because of Public Law 69-392 (44 Stat. 745) of June 15, 1926 an act of Congress was necessary to add lands to any national forest in New Mexico or Arizona. Therefore it took a specific new law in order to add these four Land Utilization Projects in New Mexico to the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests in 1962. Finally, the small 2,099-acre Curry County Land Utilization Project has challenged the researcher in discovering its disposition. Numbered NM-26, the project is shown as three small parcels south and west of Clovis, New Mexico on the 1961 map of the Panhandle National Grasslands, (see below Figure 13) but is not identified as the Curry County LUP. By 1963 its acreage had fallen to 1,722. Between June 30, 1965 and June 30, 1966 the Curry County LUP and its 1,722-acres had disappeared entirely as indicated by the Forest Service’s annual publication Land Area of the National Forest System, issues for 1965 and 1966.
Figure 13: 1961 map of the Panhandle National Grasslands made by the Southwestern Region. Land Utilization Project NM-26 or the Curry County LUP is shown and highlighted on the map south and west of Clovis, New Mexico. The Cross Timbers (#4) and Caddo (#5) National Grasslands are shown as being a part of and administered by Region 3. In 1970 these two grassland units were assigned to the Southern Region, Region 8.
Original LU Project Name Designation Later Name Disposition New Mexico Central Curry NM-26 None Unknown. Possibly sold or transferred to the State of New Mexico or perhaps added to the Canon Air Force Base. Cuba-Rio Puerco NM-22 None Remains a 240-acre Land Utilization Project administered by Region 3. Juan de Gabaldon Grant NM-12 None Added to the Santa Fe National Forest by an Act of Congress September 5, 1962.
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