Description of the Raton, Brilliant, and Koehler Quadrangles
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DESCRIPTION OF THE RATON, BRILLIANT, AND KOEHLER QUADRANGLES. By Willis T. Lee. INTRODUCTION. In the Brilliant and Koehler quadrangles the slopes of the settle and improve the land. The Brilliant quadrangle con mesas are not so completely covered with vegetation as their tains practically no roads except those near the mining towns sides. Pinon, juniper, and scrub oak are numerous, and in a and few houses outside the mining towns except small shacks The Raton, Brilliant, and Koehler quadrangles lie east of few places the pine and the spruce have escaped the lumber that serve as stopping places for cowboys during the summer, the Rocky Mountains, immediately south of the Elmoro and man's ax, but they have generally been removed. Little use while their cattle range in the highlands. Spanish Peaks quadrangles (see fig. 1), and constitute the is made of pinon except for firewood, but juniper and locust More improvements have been made in the eastern half of central part of the coal-producing area known as the Raton are cut for fence posts. Aspen is used for building corrals, the Raton quadrangle, which is subdivided into small tracts on Mesa region or the Raton section of the Great Plains province. for making "corduroy" roads, and for flooring bridges. ; which farm produce is raised in many places where the rain They are chiefly in Colfax County, N. Mex., but include a fall is sufficient for growing crops or where storm waters can narrow strip of Las Animas County, Colo. be stored for irrigation. Much of Johnson Mesa and some of Barilla Mesa is cultivated. Water is stored in several small \ The main line of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway reservoirs in the lowlands on or near the stream courses and traverses the Raton and Koehler quadrangles from north to used for watering stock and for irrigating small tracts of land. south. A branch from Dillon extends up Dillon Canyon to On the Meloche ranch a considerable tract of land is irrigated Gardiner and to Brilliant and another branch up Willow from a storage reservoir in Hunter Canyon, east of the Raton Qreek to Van Houten. Another road, known as the St. Louis, quadrangle. There are several small reservoirs on the west Rocky Mountain & Pacific Railway but now a part of the fork of Chicorica Creek, one of which supplies the city of Aitchison, Topeka & Santa Fe System, extends from Raton Raton with water. Much of the lowland in the Koehler quad southward to Clifton House, thence eastward beyond the rangle is under cultivation. The several lakes shown on the quadrangle to Des Moines, N. Mex., where it connects with the map are storage reservoirs supplied mainly from Vermejo Colorado & Southern, and from Clifton House southwestward River. They furnish wdter for irrigating a large area of through the Koehler quadrangle. A third railway, the Santa agricultural land near Maxwell. Fe, Raton & Eastern, is in operation between Raton, Sugarite, GEOGRAPHY OF THE GREAT PLAINS PROVINCE. and Yankee and has been constructed from Carisbrook to Ciinningham. A branch of the El Paso & Southwestern Rail The Raton, Brilliant, and Koehler quadrangles are in the road, which traverses the Koehler quadrangle, connects the southwestern part of the Raton division of the Great Plains coal-mining town of Dawson with the El Paso & Rock Island province. The surface of the part of this division of the Great Railroad at Tucumcari. Plains that lies in northeastern New Mexico and southern :Raton, which had a population of 5,544 in 1920, is the Colorado stands about a mile above sea level. This division, largest town in northern New Mexico. It is the county seat of which embraces also the Mesa de Maya, farther northeast, Colfax County, a division point on the Atchison, Topeka & includes many mesas or table-lands which have gently undu Santa Fe Railway, and the center of the mining industry in lating surfaces that rise to altitudes ranging from a few hundred the northern part of the Raton coal field. Coal mining is the to more than 2,000 feet above the general level of the plain. principal industry in this region. There are four coal-mining Between this group of mesas and the mountains proper there towns in the Raton quadrangle, two in the Brilliant quad are highlands that stand at a general level of 2,000 feet or rangle, and there is one in the Koehler quadrangle. Yankee, more above the Great Plains. For nearly 150 miles along the FIGUBK 1. Index map of south-central Colorado and north-central New the easternmost mining town, stands picturesquely in the valley Rocky Mountain front in northern New Mexico and southern Mexico. Colorado these highlands form a transitional zone between the The location of the Raton, Brilliant, and Koehler quadrangles (No. 214) is shown by the darker of the east fork of Chicorica Creek, almost surrounded by the ruling. Published folios describing other quadrangles, indicated by lighter ruling, are the high mesas. It was the headquarters of the New Mexico- typical Great Plains and the mountains. The southern part following: 7, Pikes Peak; 36, Pueblo; 48, Tenmile district; 58, Elmoro ; 68, Walsenburg; 71, Spanish Peaks; 185, Nepesta; 186, Apishapa; 198, Castle Rock: 208, Colorado Springs. Colorado Coal & Mining Co. until 1918, when the company of this transitional zone is known as the Ocate Mesa, but The Raton and Brilliant quadrangles extend from 36° 45' suspended operations. the main part embraces the Trinidad and Raton coal fields of to 37° north latitude and from 104° 15' to 104° 45' west Sugarite (shu-gar-eaf), which stands between high mesas on the Raton Mesa region. longitude. The Koehler quadrangle extends from 36° 30' to the west fork of .Chicorica Creek, had in 1920 a population Most of the Great Plains province slopes eastward from the 36° 45' north latitude and from 104° 30' to 104° 45' west of 471, consisting mainly of men employed in the Sugarite region near the foot of the Rocky Mountains at the rate of longitude. The three quadrangles include 717 square miles. mine, one of the newer openings of the St. Louis, Rocky about 10 feet to the mile, from altitudes ranging from 6,000 to Mountain & Pacific Company. The name Sugarite is a cor 7,000 feet, but in the part of that province that lies in the VEGETATION. ruption of the Spanish word Chicorica (pronounced che- Raton Mesa region the altitudes range from 6,000 to more The lowlands of the Raton, Brilliant, and Koehler quad co-re'ka), and the creek and canyon as well as the town are than 10,000 feet. Large parts of the surface of the Great rangles sustain a thin growth of grass, many kinds of small locally called Sugarite instead of Chicorica. Plains are smooth and gently undulating; others are charac flowering plants, several species of cactus ( Opuntia), sagebrush Blossburg, in Dillon Canyon west of Raton, is one of the terized by low mesas and shallow canyons; and still others by (Artemisia Iridentata Nuttall), and other small shrubs. Some oldest mining towns in New Mexico; it was established soon high mesas, rugged hills, and deep canyons. The highland parts of the lowlands that can be irrigated from storage reser after the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway reached area that includes the Raton and Brilliant quadrangles and voirs are cultivated, but most of them are used for grazing. A Raton. In 1890 its population was 1,171, but in 1920 it was that was formerly called the Raton Mountains is probably the few cottonwoods and willows grow along the streams. Pinon only 292. Gardiner, which had 985 inhabitants in 1900, had most rugged part of the Great Plains province. or nut pine (Pinus edulis Engelmann) and juniper (Juniperm 373 in 1920. The coke ovens there insure a small permanent The Great Plains are drained by rivers that rise in the monosperma (Engelmann) Sargent, commonly known as cedar) population, and the opening of the new Gardiner mine by the Rocky Mountains and flow to the Mississippi. The highlands grow in the highlands but are found also on some of the lower St. Louis, Rocky Mountain & Pacific Co. between Gardiner of the Raton Mesa region lie between two of these rivers, the rocky slopes, their distribution being probably due to the and Blossburg has caused an increase in the population of both Arkansas and the Canadian, and are drained northeastward character of the soil rather than to difference in altitude. towns. This company operates another mine in Dillon Can into the Arkansas, mainly through the Purgatoire, which cuts Piflon and juniper grow mainly in rocky places, especially on yon farther upstream, at Brilliant, a town which in 1920 had a long, deep canyon into the plains before reaching the main sandstone and igneous rock, rarely on the marine shale a population of 606, made up almost exclusively of men stream; eastward through the Dry Cimarron; and southward (Pierre). employed in mining. into the Canadian, which has cut a conspicuous gorge in the Few trees or shrubs grow on the tops of the mesas, which Van Houten, another coal-mining town, one of the largest plateau. The Purgatoire receives a small part of the drainage are covered mainly with grass and small flowering plants. producers in the Raton coal field, stands near the openings of from the Brilliant quadrangle through Long Canyon and from Some of the mesas are used for grazing and others for raising the Willow mine, on the south fork of Willow Creek, in the the Raton quadrangle through San Isidro Canyon." The crops.