Escontrias Ranch: A
Link to Hueco Tanks Park
By Lorraine Kress with additional research
by Brenda Palma
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Silverio
Escontrias raised cattle on a ranch
which became
Hueco Tanks State
Park.
Photo courtesy of the Escontrias
Elementary School, Socorro, Texas. |
Land ownership has long been the focus of much
strife and debate. Great empires have spread
over several continents. Conquerors decimated
native peoples and claimed their lands. They, in
turn, were conquered by invaders from other
lands. So, who owns the land? And for how long?
The spectacular rock formation known as Hueco
Tanks, 30 miles from El Paso, has caused this
question to be asked in recent history. Hueco
Tanks is named for the unique hollows huecos, or
"tanks," in the rocks which collect and store
rainwater, creating an oasis in the Southwestern
desert. Ancient native cultures gave way to the
influence of white men who began to claim the
land as theirs.
Based on Folsom projectile points which have
been found there, evidence shows that bison
hunters inhabited Hueco Tanks about 10,000 years
ago With the extinction of the bison came people
of the Desert Archaic Culture, who lived in pit
houses partially underground, some 3,000 to
6,000 years ago.
Later, the
Jornada Mogollon Culture
left distinct marking on the rocks dating to
1000 C. E. Hueco Tanks employee Wanda Olszewski
said in an interview with this writer that most
of the paintings and carvings on the rock
surfaces at Hueco Tanks are from this ancient
culture. More modern inhabitants of the tanks
have included the Mescalero and Lipan Apaches
and perhaps the Jumano Indians. The Kiowas and
Comanches knew the area, and El Paso's Tigua
Indians still claim the area as sacred ground.
The
Mescalero Apaches
used the tanks frequently in the 18th and 19th
centuries. It was an ideal refuge from their
enemies, Spaniards, Mexicans and Americans.
Historian C.L. Sonnichsen wrote about a Spanish
campaign against the Mescaleros in 1775 in which
they were defeated. Another campaign was
launched the following year that drove most
Apaches even further west, while one band stayed
behind in the tanks.
With the
California Gold Rush,
travelers through Hueco Tanks were more and more
often non-native adventurers and settlers
heading west. The tanks became a rest and water
stop for both humans and animals. In 1858, the
Butterfeld Overland Mail
even established a stagecoach stop there, but it
moved the following year to a more protected
location. Some of the history of Hueco Tanks was
lost at that time when waiting stagecoach
passengers marked over the pictographs created
by earlier cultures and left their names and
dates as well as drawings.
In 1898, Silverio Escontrias purchased Hueco
Tanks and the family operated their cattle
business from an adobe ranch. This signified the
first documented purchase of the property.
However, in an unpublished paper, historic
preservation consultant Terri Myers stated that
in 1885, Juan Armendariz, possibly a godfather
to Escontrias, first acquired the land through
the establishment of the Corporation of Socorro
by the Pueblo de Socorro Grant. That same grant
also awarded some of the land to the
Texas and Pacific Railway
Company, from which Escontrias made
his purchase.
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Escontrias was a
Texas Ranger,
well versed in the establishment of law and
order. Jim Escontrias, Jr., said in a 1984
interview with El Paso Herald-Post columnist
Virginia Turner that Silverio Escontrias "always
got along well with the Indians. They'd trade
horses." Ranching in such an isolated area gave
raiding Indians an easy target, so Escontrias
relied on his powers of communication to secure
peace. The accessibility of water greatly
outweighed the risk of raids. In the same
interview, the younger Escontrias remembered the
family and cattle getting all of their water
from Hueco Tanks. The Escontrias family owned
and operated the cattle ranch until 1956.
Terri Myers' research also revealed plans that
date back to 1885 for Hueco Tanks to be turned
into a resort, but when Armendariz acquired the
land, the plans were put on the back burner.
Escontrias eventually began to charge curious
visitors a small admission fee. Visitors freely
roamed the area until careless hunters
endangered the cattle, resulting in the
cessation of public access. Instead, special
passes were issued to parties to help monitor
people on the land.
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The
Escontrias ranch house now serves as
the interpretive center at Hueco Tanks
State Park.
Photo by Stella Perry |
Local newspaper articles report that on July 22,
1935, the Escontrias family offered to sell a
portion of the land to the county for $42,000 to
develop a park, but the purchase depended on a
tax levy. Another article a few days later said
that "protests against purchase of Hueco Tanks
by the county, particularly at the price set by
the Escontrias family, are piling into the
office of Judge Joseph McGill." The purchase did
not take place, and new plans for development
surfaced. The plans included housing
developments, lakes, a frontier town movie set,
golf courses, resort and restaurants. The plans
were never put into effect.
It is unclear who owned the land following the
Escontrias family, but El Paso County acquired
it in the mid-1960s. On June 12, 1969, the
county then gave Hueco Tanks, by an exclusive
deed, to the Texas Parks and Wildlife
Department. In May 1970,
Hueco Tanks Historical
Park was officially opened to the
public.
Over the years, before and even after Hueco
Tanks became a park, visitors defaced rocks with
graffiti and vandalized priceless pictographs.
Graffiti
removal is a slow, laborious and expensive task,
with one such removal costing $10,000. Care must
be taken to preserve the integrity of the rock
and the painting or carving. Today, access to
Hueco Tanks is severely restricted. One of the
park's major concerns is to educate the public
to respect the land in order to preserve the
historical paintings and carvings.
But the story doesn't end there.
Hueco Tanks
evidently has been a sacred site for centuries
for various tribes, including the Tiguas of
Ysleta. In his book Historic El Paso, Ken Flynn
wrote that "excavations of pithouses identified
as belonging to the Mogollon, from whom the
Pueblo Indians are descended, indicate the use
of a 'kiva'
or 'tula,' a special ceremonial room used for
prayer and sacrifice to the gods." What others
call rock art, the Tiguas call spiritual and
historical symbols. The Tiguas see Hueco Tanks
as their ancestral home and consider sacred many
specific sites.
In 2000, a consulting firm for the Tiguas
prepared a
management plan
for Hueco Tanks, addressing many topics such as
limited public access, desecration of sacred
shrines as cultural resources, imposed religious
infringements on culturally affiliated peoples
and others. These are issues between the Texas
Parks and Wildlife Department and the Tiguas,
and they remain unresolved. The
document, prepared by
Cultural Consultants, is available at
the downtown El Paso Public Library.
The Escontrias Ranch represented a unique
bridge between Indian cultures and state
ownership. This family lived off the land and
moved on, as other cultures have done for
thousands of years. Today, the Escontrias ranch
house still stands and is used as an
interpretive center for visitors to Hueco Tanks.
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