Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Environmental History of the Southwest Borderlands by Jeffrey P. Shepherd

Abstract

Reviewed by: Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Environmental History of the Southwest Borderlands by Jeffrey P. Shepherd Glen Sample Ely Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Environmental History of the Southwest Borderlands. By Jeffrey P. Shepherd. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2019. Pp. 227. Notes, index.) Jeffrey Shepherd’s instructive environmental history is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the Guadalupe Mountains, its fragile, arid ecosystem, and how humans have interacted with and impacted their environment over the millennia. Guadalupe Mountains National Park, located in Texas, is smaller than 90,000 acres. Confronted with such a limited geographical area, Shepherd frames his narrative within the larger context of the Southwest Borderlands. His focus is a zone bounded by Roswell, New Mexico, 135 miles to the north, the Pecos River, sixty-five miles to the east, and El Paso, Texas, 115 miles to the west and south. After introducing the geology, flora, and fauna of the Guadalupes, the author moves to the area’s first inhabitants, who lived here more than 10,000 years ago. Next are Spanish exploration and settlement of the region during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Following the U.S.–Mexico War, the United States sent topographic engineers to explore the Trans-Pecos region, including the Guadalupe Mountains, home of the highest point in Texas. These explorations, combined with railroad surveys during the 1850s, greatly expanded the existing knowledge of the area’s geography, natural resources, and inhabitants. Shepherd’s discussion of the Mescalero Apaches, their cultural lifeways, and the U.S. Army’s military engagements with this tribe, is a highlight. By the 1880s, the Southern Pacific and Texas and Pacific railways spanned West Texas, spurring area development and settlement. Soon vast cattle herds were grazing regional grasslands, and farmers were irrigating crops from the Pecos River. Another of the book’s standout chapters features gritty profiles of early homesteaders and settlers, scrappy men and women who adapted to their stark, remote environs. In the 1920s and 1930s, a flurry of oil exploration transformed West Texas and southern New Mexico. Conservation of the region’s outstanding scenic and environmental assets came later than in other parts of the Southwest, finally gaining traction with the establishment of Guadalupe Mountains National Park in 1966. [End Page 463] In widening his lens to focus on a larger study area, however, Shepherd overlooks some of the more important environmental concerns closer to home in the Guadalupes. One issue is the significant degradation and desertification of area grasslands by livestock overgrazing. Another is water. For the past sixty years, agricultural concerns in Dell City, located on the west side of the park, have aggressively pumped the Bone Spring-Victorio Peak Aquifer. This has lowered the water table on average by thirty feet, drying up significant, historic water sources such as Crow Spring. In addition, the city of El Paso is actively buying up water rights in the region to ensure its continued growth. How will all of this affect the Guadalupes? Discussions of nearby oil boom towns such as Mentone and Orla are absent from Shepherd’s story, as are the current environmental impacts of the Permian shale boom on the Guadalupe Mountains, including area work camps, heavy truck traffic, and considerable nighttime light pollution from Orla. There are also big changes in land ownership. The park’s immediate neighbor to the south is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns 400,000 acres and has built a space-rocket launching port on the old Figure 2 Ranch and adjacent land. These points notwithstanding, Shepherd’s thoughtful and informative work of the Guadalupe Mountains is a welcome addition to the growing historiography on the Texas Trans-Pecos. Glen Sample Ely Grand Junction, Colorado Copyright © 2020 The Texas State Historical Association