Salt Flats Geocache
One of my hobbies is geocaching. One uses your GPS to sort of play a game of hide and seek. Through this activity you end up seeing lots of places which you would otherwise overlook. There are several groups and web sites which help coordinate this activity, but the one I prefer is at http://www.geocaching.com
I have hidden a few caches including one at a beautiful, scenic location on Otero Mesa which is numbered GC1FHBH at the latitude-longitude coordinates of N 31.85003, W-105.78242
One of my fellow Geocachers who uses the online name -VAtechnoteacher- recently hid a geocache about 75 miles (122 km) east of my home at a location near the Guadalupe Mountains called Salt Flats.
The GPS Coordinates (WGS84 Datum) of his cache at Salt Flats which is numbered GC1VJ84 are:
--- Decimal 31.75425 -104.98998
--- DDD MM.MMM N 31° 45.255 W 104° 59.399
--- DDD MM SS.SSS N 31° 45' 15.3000" W 104° 59' 23.9388"
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His description of the area around Salt Flats is so good that I have copied it below:
Geology of the Texas Salt Flats
Upon approaching the Guadalupe Mountains from the west, visitors traveling east from the El Paso area will pass through a landscape of barren beauty. The two highest peaks near this area include Guadalupe Peak at 8,749 feet which is the highest peak in Texas and El Capitan, a sheer cliff wall at 8,078 feet. The salt flats are a remnant of an ancient, shallow lake that once occupied this area during the Pleistocene Epoch, approximately 1.8 million years ago. Salt collected here as streams drained mineral-laden water into this basin. This major, elongated basin, also called a graben, formed about 26 million years ago as faulting lifted the Guadalupe Mountains and depressed the adjacent block of the Earth’s crust. This area is approximately 60 miles long and 10 miles wide. At the end of the last ice age, approximately 10,000 years ago, the lake dried up as the climate became more arid. The salt deposits left behind would later become a known as the Texas Salt Flats and would be a precious resource for the people of the area.
Modern saline playas (the flat floor of a desert basin having interior drainage) such as the Salt Flat area of Texas usually create a shallow lake in the lowest parts of the basin during or after heavy or prolonged rains. These areas have both low rainfall and high evaporation rates. The area ground waters percolate through nearby evaporative Permian strata and become charged with considerable dissolved solids which further concentrate and lead to very elevated salinities in the material left behind. The sediment thickness in the basin is probably a few thousand meters and includes coarse gravels and sands alternating with clays from the weathering of the nearby mountains. There is no natural outlet for this area so all drainage is internal and sediments become finer-grained toward the basin’s center. The white gypsum and halite (rock salt) which are typically left behind restrict vegetation growth. In recent years floods have washed silt onto much of the salt beds, providing just enough soil for a few plants to grow, but some areas are as barren and white as in bygone times.
Halite or table salt is a colorless or white mineral which occurs naturally as a cubic crystal and can be found in dried lakebeds in arid climates. It is often mined or gathered from the surface to be used in a variety of ways by man. This salt was a highly valued commodity in the 1880s. It was such a valuable substance that it was hauled by oxen and mule wagons for many hundreds of miles over the southwest trail and arrived eventually in Chihuahua City. The salt in this area was still being ‘mined’ into the 1950s.
History of Salt Mining
Salt was considered sacred to Native American tribes who lived in the area. These people were the first to both use and appreciate the salt deposits left in this area. In 1692, Diego de Vargas used a Native American prisoner to lead an expedition of 20 Spanish solders from Socorro through the Hueco Mountains in search of salt deposits in and around the Guadalupe Mountains. After a trip of four days, they discovered the salt beds, collected a sample of the salt, and returned to New Spain (Mexico). This expedition helped pave the way for future Spanish expeditions to the Guadalupes. For the next one hundred ninety years, the inhabitants of the El Paso region depended on salt from these Salt Flats. After the
American-Mexican War, the 5,000 Mexicans who chose to live in the El Paso valley region would supplement their farming income by enduring the heat and threat of Apache attack to collect salt. They would travel as far south as Chihuahua to load their wagons with this precious resource. The El Paso Valley communities would make a 70 mile, two day journey to the salt beds and then transport the mineral by mule drawn wagons back to Chihuahua and Sonora, where it was important trade item. The salt was also sometimes used in Chihuahua for the smelting of silver.
Prior to 1848, the salt beds, under Spanish law, were common land not owned by any one individual. After 1848, under American law, these were unclaimed lands, available to anyone who filed there. The Mexicans, believing that everybody had the right to the salt, never thought to file claims to the salt beds in the name of any one individual or group.
The Salt War
The El Paso Salt War began in the late 1860’s as a struggle began between El Paso businessmen W.W. Mills, Albert J. Fountain, and Louis Cardis (and later a friend of Cardis’—District Judge Charles Howard) in an attempt to acquire title to the salt deposits near the base of the Guadalupe Mountains. Mexican Americans of the valley communities, who had constructed the road and for years had collected salt there for free, were now faced with the threat of being charged salt collection fees.
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By using political offices these businessmen tried to file for rights to these salt flats and gain control of the land for either personal or public use. Over time these men began to fight among themselves and eventually Cardis was murdered by Howard. The area Mexicans became enraged over these conflicts over the salt flats and took matters into their own hands.
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In early December, a wagon train of Mexicans from both sides of the border left the valley, headed for the salt lakes. After a confrontation with the accused murderer, Howard and several Texas Rangers, a Mexican firing squad shot Howard, his agent and another man who was accompanying him. Fort Bliss was reactivated and within a few days, several detachments of troops and a posse of American citizens arrived in San Elizario, killing and wounding an untold number of people. The short lived war very nearly led to an armed confrontation between the U.S. and Mexico. Eventually, the Salt Flats were claimed by the United States and the Mexican community was forced to pay for the salt they once collected for free on what they considered communal land. The El Paso Salt War was not merely a quarrel over control of the salt beds, but rather a struggle for the economic and political future of the area.
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