There was a strong feeling of enmity between the Southerners—most of whom had come from Texas—and the Mexicans. In February of the following year a dispute about the locating of mining claims arose. The Americans insisted that the Mexicans should not be allowed to locate claims along the main gulches. The Mexicans, believing themselves to be the stronger group, made plans to take the camp. Don Manuel Leguinazabal prevailed upon them to desist so what might have been a bloody conflict was averted. The Indians continued to attack small parties and to steal stock so the two groups forgot their differences and united against the common enemy. For many months there were no major calamities for the Mexicans had made a treaty with the Indians who frequently came to the camp to beg for tobacco or to trade. Some bright mind conceived the idea late in the summer of ’64 to have a fiesta to celebrate the treaty of peace and to invite the Indians. A fine dinner of beans and other dishes was served to sixty Apaches in a house, since destroyed, but which stood near the present home of Miss Recene Ashton. While the beans were being enjoyed the dastardly hosts opened fire, killing several of the guests, others escaped with all trust in the settlers destroyed. Woe to anyone who wandered from camp from that time on. Virgil Marston took a chance and was killed on Whiskey Creek. He was buried beside his brother. But the danger did not keep other men from coming. After the war many of the men who had gone to fight came back.
When the California Column had been disbanded at Mesilla many of its members came to the settlement as “Indian fighters” and to make their fortunes in the gold camp. In 1866 the name “Birchville” was changed to the original name of “Pinos Altos”. To many the climate and the beauty of the country made a strong appeal and they considered making permanent homes. There were no American women in the settlement so many men took Mexican and Indian girls as their common law wives, built log or adobe homes and founded families that have been prominent in the history of the Southwest. Perhaps a touch of homesickness made them yearn for familiar things. They sent to former homes for seeds and trees and planted orchards, vineyards and gardens on their claims where they had built homes. Some did not stake out claims but built on open ground, holding it by “Squatters’ Rights”. Messrs. Houston and Thomas located several claims down Bear Creek and made of the home place a garden spot. Their apple orchard was the first in Grant County. Moore, Stanley, Barton, Adair and Handy also planted orchards and vineyards. There were fields of alfalfa, corn and beans, and smaller plots of garden truck and flowers. Besides his terraced grape vines and fruit trees Mr. Stanley had a rose garden. The Mexicans planted almond and peach trees around their homes and invariably had oleanders in wooden tubs. During the summer they blossomed beside the doorways and somehow room was found for them inside the small dwellings when frost came. They took fledgling mocking birds from nests and carefully tended and trained them. They were kept in large cages hanging outside on the wall or from a tree where they called and exchanged confidences with the neighboring birds or complemented the guitar music. Each home had a small corral for the burro. Chickens and cows roamed at will and here and there goats would clamber over walls and roofs. Every day the yard was swept as clean as the mud packed floors of their dwellings. Peter Wagnor and John Simon brought wild roses from the canyons and planted hedges of them around their homes. Although the buildings were crude the general impression was pleasing. While this was begun in the late 60’s it stretched over many years.
A band of Navajos succeeded in driving off 31 yoke of oxen belonging to Hartford and Groves on the night of June 16, 1867. A company of 50 men under the command of Richard Hudson, (a member of the California Column and an uncle, by marriage, of Mrs. Robert K. Bell) took the trail and followed it for eight days before they came upon the band. In the running fight thirteen Navajos were killed and seven taken as prisoners. Hudson reported that one of his men had a cheek grazed by a bullet. This is the only record of the camp being raided by any Indians other than Apaches.
After the war the policy of the government regarding the West changed. The point that affected the Southwest most was the establishing of forts to protect travel and trade—even to protect the miners at Pinos Altos. In the general field orders for the establishing of forts it was stated “that one was to be in the vicinity of Pinos Altos, to consist of one company of infantry and two of cavalry to protect the miners of southwest New Mexico from the Warm Springs Apaches.” The Military Reservation of Fort Bayard was established in 1869.
All during the ’60’s supplies had to be brought in by pack trains over rough trails. The 10 mile trail to Santa Rita was the most direct line crossing above present Fort Bayard and across the mountains to Whiskey Creek. The pack trains from Mesilla left the main road to Santa Rita at Fort McLane (Apache Tejo) and came straight to camp. Game was plentiful but hunters had to be sent out daily to keep the people supplied with meat. It was never safe for one man to hunt alone so small parties took turns with the understanding that the venison, bear and other game would be shared by all. The Hill Brothers left the camp to ranch on the Gila at what was known for years as the Hill and later the Gila Hot Springs (now Doc Campbell’s). There they raised vegetables and made jerky of venison which were brought to camp. James McKenna, author of Black Range Tales, engaged in such trade. The miners made periodic trips to the springs to bathe and sweat out the grime, smoke and the effects of bad whiskey. In 1868 Ancheta had a trading post in the original part of the old store building which burned in 1957. The handmade wrought iron box found in the ruins may have been his strong box. That same year he operated an arrastra, the remains of which can still be seen on the “Mill Site” now belonging to L. E. Nichols.
Mr. Robert K. Bell, as a boy, lived at the Ancheta Ranch, (the Ward Lodge in Little Cherry) and he told the story of the original stone house. Sr. Ancheta had taken up land near the Twin Sisters and had a goat ranch. This land is said to be the first land patented in Grant County. Ancheta went to Mexico for a visit and was a guest at an hacienda where he fell in love with the wife of his host. He persuaded her to run away with him and come to Pinos Altos. The house was built for her. The port holes were designed to keep off the pursuing husband and relatives as well as the Indians.
There was no formal organization, nor survey made of the camp until 1867. Anson Mills, later a prominent figure in the history of El Paso, was sent by a member of the famous Maverick family to make a mineral survey and report of this district. Evidently Mills’ report was not satisfactory to Mr. Maverick for he took no further interest in this section but Mills stayed. The residents felt that to make their rights to improvements secure they should take legal action so a Pinos Altos Town Company was organized. It had hired Mills to survey and plot the town conforming to government survey lines. According to the file in the county courthouse, transferred to Grant from Dona Ana, “streets had been laid off and graded, four bridges built over Bear Creek, and some wells sunk”. The file also states that “The first settlement had been made in 1860. In 1868 it had 600 to 700 inhabitants, 120 houses, two stamp mills, a number of arrastras, three furnaces for smelting silver, two hotels, and several mercantile establishments.” Incidentally, there were seven saloons, but instead of being listed separately they may have been classed as “mercantile” establishments. “The town embraced 320 acres, twenty miles from the Gila River and 110 from the Rio Grande by the nearest traveled road.” The town company was incorporated and the deed signed by “Samuel J. Jones, vice president, acting for persons” and dated July 3, 1868. Grant County was formed from Dona Ana that same year and Pinos Altos was made the county seat, 1869-1871. The county’s first court house is now owned by Mrs. Mabel Eckerd of Lordsburg. Only one term of court was held, presided over by Judge H. B. Johnson. It has been described as “the gayest and loudest ever held in the Rocky Mountain region.” A band furnished music, refreshments were handy, and two condemned men were taken out and hanged from the same tree where Dan Diamond met his fate.
Trolius Stephens brought his wife overland by mule train from Nebraska in 1873. She was the first, and for several years, the only American woman in town, excepting Miss Parker who had been here eleven years before. They were the grandparents of Cecil Stephens of Arenas Valley. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stephens were interested in welfare of the people, they visited the sick, cared for the injured, and saw to it that no family was cold or hungry. He contended that a man was worth but $1.25 a day from the neck down but that there was no limit to his worth from the neck up. He paid accordingly. He could not or would not tolerate stealing. On one occasion when he noticed that wood was disappearing from the town’s large wood yard, and the man in charge of it said that he did not know how, when, or by whom, Mr. Stephens said he would “fix the guy.” He bored holes in several sticks of wood and put in dynamite. Before sunrise the next morning a mighty blast shook the town. Mr. Stephens rushed out and saw a roof rising into the brightening sky and above were several black disks, the lids from the kitchen stove—in the home of his cousin.
Fuel for homes and mills was juniper and oak wood cut in the hills into cord lengths and packed into town by burros. Ore from the mines was taken to the mills in the same manner. Often there were as many as twenty burros to a train. The trails they used still stand out on the mountain sides, as do the old roads from the saw mills, where the logs were hauled out by oxen. Among the names of men who operated early sawmills are Ripley, Scott, McMillan, Brownell and Franey, who came in ’81 or ’82. He was joined in 1902 by his nephew, Thomas Foy, a rosy cheeked boy fresh from old Ireland. Later there were Davidson, Slack, Leonard, Mason and others.
From the earliest days when both Mexicans and Americans traveled through the country they would camp at the springs the Mexicans had called Cienega de San Vicente. Miners from Pinos Altos tried raising corn and beans there, but being loathe to leave their diggings to care for the crops, Indians or animals destroyed them. Captain A. J. Hulburt, more daring and persistent than other miners, built a cabin and took his Mexican wife there to live during the growing season. He would ride to and from his mine, the “Texas” on the western slope of the mountain, a distance of seven miles. One day he left his rifle at the cabin with his wife and son and went out to plow his field. Looking up he saw Apaches between himself and the house. Knowing he could not rescue his family he ran to the mines, hoping his wife would be able to stand off the marauders until he could get help. Almost exhausted he gasped out his story. The men grabbed their guns, mounted their animals and hurried to the cabin, only to find it smouldering, the wife and son dead, and the Indians gone.