February 2010
History Lessons
Racking Up History column by Bill Rakocy
See also: At the Museum
Menu of this month's listings, stories and columns
Concordia Ghost Tours — Concordia Heritage Association and Paso Del Norte Paranormal Society host a monthly ghost tour 7 to 9 p.m. the first Saturday of the month (Feb. 6) at historic Concordia Cemetery. Henry and Veronica Flores of the Paranormal Society conduct a walking tour of the cemetery’s haunted sites where people have reported seeing a Lady in White, and other ghostly apparitions. Bring recording equipment, cameras, extra batteries, flashlight, comfortable walking (closed toe) shoes and jacket in cooler months, and be a ghost hunter as well. Reservations required. Cost: $10 (ages 13 and older welcome; ages 13-17 must be accompanied by adult). Reservations/information: 373-1513 or ghosts915.com.
Three new routes have been added for 2010: “The Outlaw Route” about paranormal and old west history, “The Witch’s Path” about paranormal and occult sightings, and “The Ghost Hunter,” where guests go on a paranormal investigation and learn how to be a ghost hunter.
“History Notes” at Branigan Cultural Center — The monthly program is 1 to 2 p.m. the second Thursday of each month at the Branigan Cultural Center, 501 N. Main, north end of the Downtown Mall in Las Cruces. Admission is free. Information: (575) 541-2154 or las-cruces.org/museums
The programs are informal discussions on local and regional history led by staff and volunteers. The Thursday, Feb. 11, meeting focuses on the Doña Ana Bend Colony Land Grant. Topics include an overview of the founding families and elements of the land grant that remain today. Staff will also address the platting of Las Cruces within the original land grant.
El Paso Archaeological Society — The society’s monthly meeting and lecture is 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21, at El Paso Museum of Archaeology, 4301 Transmountain. This month’s lecture is “Rough and Ready Geophysics: Examining Methodological Approaches to Subsurface prospection in Historical Archaeological Research” by Beth Griffith. Admission is free. Information: 755-4332 or epas.com.
‘Outers and Unders’ — Fort Bayard Historical Preservation Society will host the historical fashion show at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 6, at the Fort Bayard Theatre, featuring fashions from 1866 to the early 1910’s. Includes a “wedding” under raised sabers. Period-correct refreshments served during intermission. Tickets: $12: Information/tickets: Cecilia, (575) 956.3294; Kathy, (307) 640-3012 or Donna, (575) 519-8179.
Fort Bayard, N.M., is off U.S. 180 southeast of Silver City. Sponsored by the Fort Bayard Historical Preservation Society.
The fort will be closed down and boarded up in the fall of 2010, unless enough funds and support raised to save it. Information/donations: fortbayard.org or fortbayardhistoricpreservationsociety.org.
Mexican Revolution call for teaching materials — The Center for History Teaching and Learning at UTEP is taking submissions of high quality instructional materials through March 31 for its “Teaching the Mexican Revolution” program. The best submissions will be published and shared with attendees of UTEP’s 5th Annual Summer Teachers’ Institute. Submission details: kaerekson@utep.edu.
Needed are materials suitable for K-12 educators from across the curriculum including history, reading and language arts, fine and performing arts, mathematics, economics, government, and geography.
Previously developed materials that fit the following categories are welcome:
• Complete lesson plans
• Brief instructional activities
• Community activities
• Online games, quizzes, or webquests.
Submissions will be judged by a panel of experts and top entries in each category will earn prizes in the form of books and gift certificates.
El Paso Museum of History — 510 N. Santa Fe. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Mondays. Admission is free. Information: 351-3588. For exhibit and special event information, see “At the Museum” listing.
Fort Selden State Monument — The monument, in Radium Springs 13 miles north of Las Cruces, is open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Monday (closed Tuesday). Admission is $3; (ages 16 and under free). Sunday admission for New Mexico residents is $1. Information: (575) 526-8911 or nmmonuments.org.
Fort Selden was a 19th-century adobe fort established to protect early settlers from Indian raids. The monument seeks to preserve the remaining ruins and has a visitors center with exhibits of military life at the post. From Las Cruces, take I-25 north to Exit 19.
Old Fort Bliss — Building 5051, corner of Pershing and Pleasanton Roads, Fort Bliss. The Old West days of the “Soldiers of the Pass” are relived through replicas of the original adobe fort buildings and military artifacts, Magoffinsville Post 1854 to 1868. Admission: free. Hours: Daily 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Information: 568-3137.
Chamizal National Memorial — 800 S. San Marcial. The National Park Service operates the memorial on land once claimed by Mexico as part of a decades-long dispute over the international boundary. A similar park in Juárez lies across the Rio Grande, whose shifting nature in earlier years triggered the dispute. The visitor center has an exhibit on the history of the Chamizal dispute, including a video presentation. Park grounds and picnic area open 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; visitors center open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday. Admission is free. Information: 532-7273.
Free ranger guided tours and interpretive programs at are offered at 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. The tours last 45 minutes to an hour and consist of walking short distances on the park grounds, as well as visiting various museum exhibits and displays located in the visitor center. Interpretive programs will include U.S./Mexico history and treaties, Cordova Island, the park’s mural Nuestra Herencia by Carlos Flores, the establishment of the Memorial, and a variety of other items related to the borderland community.
Storytime with Georgia Askew is 10 a.m. the third Thursday of the month. Reservations required for both programs.
Los Portales Museum and Visitor Center — 1521 San Elizario Road. The museum is operated by the San Elizario Genealogy and Historical Society, and is housed in an 1850s Territorial-style building across from the San Elizario church. It offers gifts, family trees, historical artifacts and the veterans’ room, as well as information on the “First Thanksgiving” and the Salt War of 1877. Hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Information: 851-1682.
Mission Trail — Three historic churches lie within eight miles of each other in El Paso County’s Mission Valley.
• Mission Ysleta — Spanish and Tigua Indian refugees from northern New Mexico founded the community in the 1680s. The first mission was built in 1692 and rebuilt completely in both the 18th and 19th centuries. The current structure was built in 1851. It’s near Zaragoza and Alameda on the Tigua Reservation. Information: 851-9997 (El Paso Mission Trail Association).
• Mission Socorro — The first adobe structure in Socorro was built in 1692, and like nearby Mission Ysleta, was destroyed by floods in later centuries. The current structure dates back to 1843, with additions completed in 1873. It’s off Socorro Road two miles southeast of Ysleta.
• San Elizario Chapel — Established in 1789 as a Spanish presidio, or fort, to protect the Camino Real, San Elizario was the first county seat of El Paso. The church was built in 1877, replacing a church built about 25 years earlier. Technically, San Elizario Chapel is a presidio church, not a mission. It’s on the San Elizario plaza, off Socorro Road, 5.5 miles southeast of Socorro Mission. Nearby is the famous jail that Billy the Kid reportedly broke into to rescue a friend. Group tours are available. For San Elizario tour information, call 851-1682.
Concordia Heritage Association — Anyone interested in learning about, preserving and promoting history is invited to join the association, which meets at 7 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month, at Zion Lutheran Church, 2800 Pershing. Information: 581-7920.
The nonprofit group takes care of Concordia Cemetery, home to over 60,000 famous, infamous and other eternal residents. The association also helps people locate ancestors buried there and researches requests related to the historic burial ground that once was the home of rancher Hugh Stephenson and his wife, Doña Juana Ascarate de Stephenson.
The group also sponsors the annual Walk Through History in October at Concordia Cemetery as well as other events involving characters from El Paso’s past, particularly those buried at Concordia.
Shakespeare Ghost Town — A small pioneer settlement and mining town on the trail to California, Shakespeare, N.M., lives on thanks to a single family that has owned the townsite (2 1/2 miles from Lordsburg) since 1935. Information: (575) 542-9034 or shakespeareghostown.com.
Also on display: the Jim Emanuel Western Collection of antique and reproduction guns, custom-made holsters, saddles and tack.
To get there: From Lordsburg, take the Main Street exit (Exit 22) from Interstate 10 and turn south. Follow signs to Shakespeare.
Racking Up History column by Bill RakocyVilla’s secret family tree
All the stories, books and data reproduced about the Mexican revolution and Pancho Villa must number in the thousands … perhaps we shall soon learn the truth.
The year 2000 produced a most amazing 216-page book on the revolution and Villa, “The Secret Family of Pancho Villa” by Rubén Osorio, translated by John Klingemann and published by the Sul Ross State University Center for Big Bend Studies in Alpine, Texas.
In an interview with Dr. Camacho Fermán, Osorio was told that in the middle 19th century, Dr. Fermán’s great-grandfather Luis Fermán, a Jew, lived in Schaan, a small industrial city north of Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. He immigrated to Mexico, and after staying for some time in Tamaulipas, Luis Fermán bought land near San Juan del Rio, Durango. There, he and his wife, Rosario Gracia, had two sons. Luis, the firstborn, died in childhood. The second, Miguel Fermán Gracia (Dr. Fermán’s grandfather), was born in 1870 in the hacienda of Ciénega de Basoco. After the death of his wife, Luis Fermán had a personal relationship with Micaela Arámbula, a maid in the main house. As a result of this relationship, Dr. Fermán stated, “an illegitimate son was born to Don Luis Fermán, my great-grandfather.”
In January 1997, Osorio began an extended odyssey researching the uncertain origin of José Doroteo Arango, alias Pancho Villa. He traveled repeatedly to various cities and towns in the states of Durango, Mexico, Coahuila, Jalisco and Chihuahua. The historic points that Osorio had to explore included:
• Verifying if Agustin Arango and family lived in San Juan del Rio in the 1870s.
• Investigating whether the legal father-son relationship between Agustin and José Doroteo Arango was a unanimously accepted fact.
• Verifying if an hacendado of Jewish-Austrian origin named Luis Fermán lived in La Ciénega de Basoco or elsewhere in the region of San Juan del Rio, Durango, during the 1870s. If so, did he and Micaela Arámbula know each other, and did they have the opportunity to form a personal relationship?
• Locating the descendants of Luis and Miguel Fermán and obtaining their oral testimonies about the origin and life of the Fermán family, and determining if they were aware of any kinship between Luis Fermán and José Doroteo Arango.
Osorio has spent years searching for facts on the Villa story. He has interviewed 20 or 30 relatives — all of whom tell slightly different stories of Villa’s birth, parents, and the prospect of his being part Jewish or not or whether or not he was of legitimate birth. No history is ever courtroom perfect in every detail — yet we feel here that Osorio has conducted a long search into the life of Pancho Villa.
Villa saw the validity for justice and a goal personified by the young, wealthy landowner Francisco Madero, who in 1903 had written a book saying there should be no new reelection of Díaz and that Mexicans must fight to gain constitutional government for Mexico. This also appeared to be the goal of Villa; therefore, the two formed a strong front for the new fight for Mexico. General Díaz had been president automatically from 1870 to the time the revolution began in 1911.
A descendant of the Fermáns, Socorro Fermán de Muniz, said: “I see Pancho Villa as a hero, a fighter and an idol of the every day Mexican. If he is my relative, as I believe, then he is more of a hero, fighter and idol to me. I am very proud. Now that I live in the United States, far away from Mexico, I don’t want to lose that pride, but rather transmit it to my own family. Viva Villa!”
Note: For information on the family of Pancho Villa by Rubén Osorio, write to the Center for Big Bend Studies, Sul Ross University, Alpine, Texas 79832.
Bill Rakocy is an El Paso artist and
historian. Information: 584-9716.
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