| Camp Gila was on land leased from the Forest Service.
It was on the Meadow Creek. a small stream that ran when it wanted to.
I went to Gila the first year it opened. It was operated for only one year
1946 and in 1947 became Camp Tuff Moses The camp was built with volunteer
labor and materials donated by the mines. Electricity was supplied by a
four cylinder Kohler plant that putout 4KW and a surplus six cylinder Hudson
6 KW plant. The four cylinder was started with an armbuster crank but the
six had an electric starter and controls to set 60 cycles and the 240 volts
needed for the water pump. It would suck a fifty-five gallon drum of gasoline
dry in less that a day. The power plants were in a concrete building that
had a door and two air vents that were closed with half inch boiler plate
doors and big padlocks. Buildings were the dining hall, a first aid lodge,
the power shed, a shed for the well and pump, two latrines and a roofless
shower building with six shower heads and a pipe coil set up for heating
the water. Water was pumped up to a tank on the hillside and then came
down a four inch pipe to the dining Hall and showers. A separate system
of half inch pipe carried water up to the first aid lodge. That system
had to be taken down and stored after camp was over and it was always a
chore trying to figure out just how to hook up the pipes again because
they had developed bends as they angled up the hill. Camp Baldy ran in
1945. I think that was the first year for it and maybe its only year. It
was on the Indian Reservation I don't really know how long it ran. I don't
think it ran in 1947. Then it was started back when they got the trailer
from Sears and ran in 1957 and 1958 if I remember right. I don't know if
I have any material on Baldy. Baldy ran later into the summer. I remember
that one year after I closed Tuff Moses I took some of my troop who had
been on vacation with their family to Baldy.
By Louis Machuca former Yucca Council Professional Scouter now retired |
| From Charley Moke in Laredo Texas.
Lincoln County Historical Society Box 574 Carrizozo NM Received my letter this week. See you are taking a trip to Gran Quivera. Let's stop here. In 1927 five boys started Boy Scout Troop 24 at Trinity Methodist Church in El Paso. We were all Eagle Scouts. All became Demolays. Three became master counsel for of Demolay. As Scouts we went to summer camp in the Indian reservation at Ruidoso we took truck trips each week at camp. After camp in 1929, seven of us, including a great EAgle Scout Deomolay from Messia Park, New Mexico, took this trip to Gran Quivera. Stopped everyone and asked directions, no roads, we just felt our way along. We fund the ruins of Gran Quivera. They were beautiful. We camped in one of the topless rooms. Had our sleeping bags. Bill Turney of Messia Park had a carbide miner's lamp, put it on top of one of the walls. The lamp and an owl kept us through the night. For food, rahter than cook, we paired up. Each of us was given on can of pork beans, two slices of bread. This is 1999 and I still use this method. Gran Quivers - it sure was something. You could not take a step without stepping on at least 8 pices of broken pottery. Broken pottery was just everywhere. Lots of broken arrows and some perfect ones. Some native Mexicans came to see what we were doing, took us to the river bed and showed how Indians put pottery jars in the river bed to get water. We spent two days there. It was jut unreal = the amounts of broken pices of pottery. We had a great time and saw one of the realt treasures the Indians left us. (Some 20 years later, I took my family to Gran Quivera. The federal government decided that the ruins that had stood for 300 years might fall, so they went in with bulldozers and men and made a modern Gran Qivera. I just could not believe the government would destroy such a beautiful place, that had been there so long). All pictures taken we left at the socut offic en El Paso. Part of the group took truck trips from camp to Lincoln. The stores and courthouse were open in 1929. We would stop at Glen Coe and George Coe (with finger off) would have someone read "Saga of Billy the Kid, Battle of Blaze Mill". One week in 1929 we went to White Oak and saw Mr. Susan Barber. Mrs Barbere told us of how she thought "Billy the Kid" was a fine fellow. Also told us she did not play the piano during the "Battle of Lincoln". Do not let anyone take all the stories of old Lincoln away from you. Joe Bob |
| In Frank King’s Pioneer Western Empire Builders (1946),
it is said: "It was not long after this [the battle at Chisum’s ranch]
till the battle of the McSween house in Lincoln occurred, with the soldiers
from Fort Stanton under Colonel Buttler [Dudley], and the Dolan gang fighting
about 20 cowboys under Billy the Kid. This was the stubbornest and
bloodiest battle of the whole war, and the Dolan outfit would have lost,
had not the soldiers appeared on the scene without authority. Buttler
[sic] lost his commission because of his actions later".
He says Coe told him that "it was almost uncanny to hear the Kid and Tom O’Folliard playing Mrs. McSween’s piano between battles, trying to keep the the spirits of the survivors." Kind has the Kid escape first and Mr. McSween followed, ‘unarmed, with a Bible in his hand, and saying ‘I am McSween". "The Dolan outfit was geeing anxious to clean up the Kid
and his followers, and was picking up all the gun fighters he could find,
that would use their abilities in his cause. They had secured the services
of Buckshot Roberts, who posed as a bad gunman and ex-Texas Ranger.
He turned out to be a tough hombre. Buckshot was offered $1000 ahead for
all of these young farmer boys he could kill.
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