By Mark Henderson and Rachel Preston Prinz
After leaving
the New Mexico frontier community of Abiquiu, arriving at Las Vegas de Santa
Clara, or Mountain Meadows, was possibly the most important milestone after
crossing the Colorado River near modern Green River, Utah. The Las Vegas de Santa Clara was important
to merchants on the Spanish Trail because it marked the last place with
abundant forage before entering the Mohave Desert. Travelers across the Mojave sometimes
resorted to eating their animals, not only as a result of lack of food sources,
but also the inadequacy of forage at desert springs. Effusive descriptions of the suitability of
Las Vegas to feed thousands of head of livestock were true, until a combination
of wheeled vehicle passage cut the turf subjecting the meadow to erosion and
overgrazing damaged the meadows.
Current conditions in Holt Canyon provide an unparalleled opportunity to
understand the impacts that historical livestock has had on the watersheds and
vegetation starting with the passage of hundreds of pack animals each fall and
thousands of head of horses and mules each spring by the commercial caravans on
the Old Spanish Trail.
The Holt Canyon route segment of the Old Spanish Trail is
representative of the following
historic contexts: Context 1: Mexican Period
and the Beginning of International Trade and Commerce, 1821-1848 and Context 3:
The Old Spanish Trail: The Main Route as
defined in the Multiple Property Documentation Form Old Spanish Trail AD
1821-1848.
This historic site is eligible for listing under Criterion A as a
property associated with events that have made a significant contribution to
the broad patterns of history during the Mexican and Territorial Periods of
under these areas of significance: commerce, economics, exploration/settlement,
social history, and transportation.
Because of the paucity of first-hand accounts of the caravan
traffic between New Mexico and California, there are only a few instances where
specific events are associated with traffic along the trail. The first known record that Las Vegas de Santa Clara was used
as part of the New Mexico trade caravans on the Spanish Trail is provided by
John C. Frémont in 1854. Frémont
anticipated “recruiting” his small military exploration party at would later
become known as Mountain Meadows after crossing the Mojave Desert, where
animals suffered from lack of quality and quantity forage. Though reported after the cessation of the
Spanish Trail caravans in 1848, Gwen Harris Heap makes a point that wheat crops
cultivated in the Taos Valley in 1853 were a hybrid of native grass seeds
collected from Las Vegas de Santa Clara.
After effusive descriptions by Frémont in 1844 stating that the meadows
were ten miles in length, by 1848 Pratt reports the meadows only six miles in
length. This might be a result of
Frémont’s typical tendency for hyperbole, but given the ongoing record of
damage which continues up to the present, the
abundant forage source at Mountain Meadows may have been rapidly
depleted by overuse, and evidence suggests that the area was so badly damaged
by erosion in the 1860s that permanent settlements were abandoned by the early
part of the 20th Century.
Later accounts also make it clear that Frémont’s concern
that Paiute maurauders would continue to try to drive off livestock as he
passed through Mountain Meadows, was not totally unfounded as demonstrated in
the “Mormon Way Bill” of 1851 (Hafen and Hafen 1998:322).
There are no events specifically recorded within the Holt
Canyon segment of the Old Spanish Trail, but the segment is part of the use of
the trail and specifically the importance of this segment of trail for layovers
to recruit livestock and people.
As with the entire “Spanish Trail” named by John C. Fremont
in 1844, the Holt Canyon segment is associated with him. However, there is no
clear specific importance of the place in Frémont’s career as an explorer. Frémont does recount being joined by the
famous western explorer and trapper Joseph Walker, just after leaving Las Vegas
de Santa Clara (Frémont 1845:271), who guided the party to Bent’s Fort on the
Santa Fe Trail in Colorado (Gilbert 1983:200-201).
Any structural features of alignment in the Holt Canyon
segment which might have been present are believed to have been destroyed by
the down-cutting of the Mountain Meadows Creek channel. The channel itself is most likely the only
remnant of the braided trail and livestock drover alignment. The Holt Canyon
trail segment does present opportunities to yield archeological evidence of
packtrail and livestock driveway activities in the period of the commercial
caravan trade to California from New Mexico.
Of particular interest is dating the down-cutting of the gulch and the
changes in vegetation that are inferred to have occurred based on the
historical evidence. Opportunities exist
at Mountain Meadows to reconstruct vegetation based on fossil pollen evidence and
geomorpohological study. Archeological
techniques such as soil chemistry, metal detection, ground penetrating radar,
as well as traditional archeological techniques such as fine grained mapping
and excavations will not be feasible unless the currently inferred alignments
are protected from further erosion.
Monitoring of the existing livestock and use should be monitored through
repeat photography, vegetation transects and micro-stratigraphic studies of the
stream channel. Because of the repeated
use and multiple day “recruitment” at “Las Vegas de Santa Clara,”
reconnaissance for revealed objects and features that may have been left in the
second quarter of the 19th Century should be on-going.