Bell Ranch (New Mexico) - History

History

The Native Americans, Comanche, Kiowa and Apache, hunted the buffalo and ground their corn in well-placed grinding holes where they could scan the horizon for friend and foe. Pictographs carved in the red cliffs indicate the native Americans may well have been living there a long time before the 16th century.

Spanish rule would be followed by the Mexicans and then to be taken in by the United States. Upon acquisition of New Mexico Territory, the U.S. Cavalry established a temporary post at the Bell Ranch Headquarters for a time, using a part of the manager's house as a "map room" and post office while surveying the surrounding area. Charles Goodnight of the Goodnight Cattle trail utilized one of the prominent mesas of the ranch, Gavilan, to navigate on the way to Colorado with his cattle herds.

Read more about this topic:  Bell Ranch (New Mexico)

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
    —Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    “History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
    —Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    “No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
    —Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)