Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Administrative History

Fabry, Judith

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, authorized by an act of Congress in 1966 and established in 1972, comprises 76,293 acres of mountain and desert land in West Texas. Congress established the park for its scientific and scenic values. The escarpments and canyons of the high country provide dramatic displays of geological sequences. McKittrick Canyon, which contains a perennial stream and unusual biotic associations, and the Bowl, which contains a relict forest, are the focal points of the park's biological values. The park also contains archeological resources and historic resources related to westward emigration and early ranching operations. Of the area within the boundaries of the park, 46,850 acres are Congressionally designated wilderness. The park is located on the Texas-New Mexico border, 110 miles east of El Paso, Texas, and 55 miles southwest of Carlsbad, New Mexico. U. S. Highway 62/180, which passes through the southern end of Guadalupe Mountains National Park, is the primary route by which visitors reach the park. The area in which the park is located is undeveloped and sparsely populated; the land is used predominantly for cattle and sheep ranching. However, the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park is only 35 miles northeast of Guadalupe Mountains on Highway 62/180 and at one point the boundaries of the two parks are only five miles apart. The few tourist facilities between El Paso and Whites City, New Mexico, consist primarily of small cafe-gas stations. Nomadic peoples utilized the resources of the mountains and desert lands of the park for at least 10,000 years before Europeans arrived in the area, but there were no permanent settlements until the late-nineteenth century, when settlers moved in and began cattle and sheep ranching. Later, in the 1920s, Wallace Pratt bought the first of several parcels of land he would acquire in McKittrick Canyon. He built a summer home and a later a permanent residence on the property. In the early 1960s he donated 5,600 acres of his property in McKittrick Canyon to the federal government to be used for a park. J. C. Hunter also purchased land in McKittrick Canyon in the 1920s and thereafter managed the canyon property as a wildlife preserve. It was part of his 72,000-acre Guadalupe Mountain Ranch, on which he raised sheep, goats, and cattle. In 1969, three years after Congress authorized the establishment of a national park in the southern Guadalupe Mountains, the federal government purchased the Guadalupe Mountain Ranch from Hunter's son, J. C., Jr. Between 1966 and 1972 the government also purchased a number of smaller parcels of land that had been included within the park boundaries and acquired through donation the mineral rights to the park lands.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Administrative History

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