Tularosa and the Dismantling of New Mexico Community Ditches

Authors

G. Emlen Hall, University of New Mexico - School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2000

Abstract

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth, contested claims to the water of a small stream in south-central New Mexico produced a storm of legal activity. The maelstrom arose out of the tangled complications surrounding the development of non-Indian water rights to the Tularosa Creek. The creek was a small spring-fed stream that headed on the Mescalero Apache Indian homelands in the Sacramento Mountains. From its beginnings, the creek ran west, first through a narrow canyon and then out onto a broad plain before petering out in the porous White Sands. Between 1880 and 1919, this unpromising wilderness produced two full trials: one interim district court decree that became final, one final district court decree that was reversed, and no fewer than three New Mexico Supreme Court decisions. l In the eye of this legal hurricane, New Mexico transformed its basic water institutions.

Publication Title

New Mexico Historical Review

Volume

75

First Page

76

Recommended Citation

G. Emlen Hall, Tularosa and the Dismantling of New Mexico Community Ditches, 75 New Mexico Historical Review 76 (2000).
Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facultyscholarship/163