More than a mountain

(Editor's Note: The following article is Part Two of a three-part series on the registration of Mount Taylor as a state Traditional Cultural Property and the issues landowners on the mountain have regarding the registration. Part Three will publish May 15.)

GRANTS - “My dad received the deed in 1927 for 22,117 acres and I've got receipts of taxes paid since then,” said Buddy “Butter” Elkins, son of Tom Elkins.

Tom, born in 1896, traveled with his father from Lubbock, Texas, on a cattle drive in 1912. His father sold all the family cattle to Tom Talley of OIO Land and Cattle Company near Chaco Canyon.

Tom accepted a job offer from Talley and the rest of the Elkins family headed back to Texas. Tom spent his first year in New Mexico herding cattle for Talley.

Because of Talley's business relation with others near Prewitt, Tom became acquainted with Joe Tietjen's family 15 miles from Baca (present-day Prewitt).

Joe and Maude Tietjen homesteaded their quarter section (160 acres) in 1886.

Tom later married their eldest daughter, Josephine in 1920 and began work for the family at their ranch in Baca.

In a personally written biography from Tom, he wrote, “Those red rocks (near Prewitt) began to feel like home to me.” And so the Elkins family found their home for many years to come.

Tom and Josephine were successful and their spread started to increase. In 1927 they leased the east side of Mount Taylor for summer pasture from Whiteside Estates out of Duluth, Minn. The real estate company had bought the mountain land for back taxes, according to Tom's personally written bio. The mountain was formerly part of the Cebolleta Land Grant.

In 1939 Tom and Josephine were able to buy the summer range and make it their own. The young couple honored a logging permit on the mountain through 1949. The project consisted of four logging camps, about 30 families, and ran year round.

Tom invested everything possible into more land, stating that he and his wife fit the old adage, “land rich, but cash poor.”

The couple had ten children, eight boys and two girls.

Tom's bio concludes, “We lived hard and worked hard…all of us. When the depression hit, we lived harder. But, we were survivors.”

Tom died in January 1949 while repairing a windmill. His children still carry his ranching legacy today although it is a fading lifestyle.

“I remember many days and nights on Mount Taylor,” said Joy Burns, granddaughter of Tom Elkins. Tom's daughter, Mildred, is Burns' mother.

According to Buddy, the family sold 7,000 acres to Mount Taylor Development Company in order to pay an inheritance tax. The 14,000 plus acres the Elkins own is within the proposed state Traditional Cultural Property.

Joy and her Uncle Buddy question the power of Cultural Property Committee. “I've seen building registered…small properties and such, but nothing the size of Mount Taylor,” said Burns. “Registering Mount Taylor is like registering Rhode Island. They are comparable in size.

More than 1,800 sites are registered in New Mexico. The list is available online at www.nmhistoricpreservation.org.

There are many building, churches, post offices and land, but nothing close to the size of Mount Taylor. Registered example sites in Cibola County are portions of Route 66, El Morro National Monument, Encinal Day School, Jesus Blea's home, Pueblo of Laguna and Saint Joseph School in San Fidel.

According to the Burns, there is nothing in the national register that compares to Mount Taylor. The amount of land proposed within the boundaries of Mount Taylor is nearly one million acres. “If you control the permit, which the state does and if passed the tribes will be involved, then you control the land,” Burns said.

Ronnie Pynes, a longtime Cibola County resident, said, “I have land up there, you do to…all the public land up there is ours. The land commissioner told us it is a 'land grab.’

“This is extreme. The organization that recently added Mount Taylor to their endangered places list, ten are buildings and the other Mount Taylor is nearly a million acres of land. There is something not right.”

Burns and her husband, Dale, have spent much time researching the Mount Taylor issue in order to have a fair process but they say have had very little cooperation, if any, from the state historic preservation office.

“The Native Americans are not the only ones that have a oneness with nature, we do too,” said Joy Burns. “It's not worth the blood, sweat and tears my family has put into this land.”

“Do you think we want major development up here?” asked Dale Burns while visiting his cabin near the top of the mountain. “Of course not. We like it the way it is.

Ronnie Pynes concluded by saying, “Registering Mount Taylor a TCP is a control issue. Where is the separation of church and state?”

Historic

Preservation Division

Mission - to protect, preserve and interpret the unique character of New Mexico; by identifying, documenting, evaluating, registering prehistoric and historic properties; by coordinating historic preservation activities at all levels of government with individuals, private organizations, and tradition communities; by education the public about historic preservation; and by protecting and preserving significant historic sites and prehistoric sites.

National Historic

Preservation Act of 1966

Establishes the governor-appointed position of State Historic Preservation Officer for each state and enumerates a list of preservation related tasks to be carried out by the SHPO and his or her staff. The division staff consists of professionals in the fields of history, archaeology, architecture, and architectural history, as well as administrative and financial support staff.

Staff

Director, Katherine Slick

Phone: 1-505-827-4044 - Email: katherin.slick@state.nm.us

General Information, 1-505-827-6320

Cultural Properties

Review Committee

• Chairman, Alan “Mac” Watson, Ph. D., historic architecture

• Vice-Chairman, Beth O'Leary, Ph. D., historic archaeology

• Estevan Rael-Galvez, Ph. D., Secretary, state historian, statutory member

• Clarence Fielder, history

• Craig Hoopes, A.I.A., architecture

• Tim Maxwell, Ph. D., archaeology

• Nancy Meem Wirth, citizen member

• Mark Mitchell, tribal member

• Phillip Shelley, Ph. D., pre-historic archaeology

The committee is scheduled to meet in Santa Fe on Friday, May 15, at the Roundhouse for public hearing on Mount Taylor becoming a permanent Traditional Cultural Property. The committee is expected to vote next month on the issue also in Santa Fe. Five tribes, Acoma, Laguna, Zuni, Hopi and Navajo are the applicants for the large mountain to become a state registered cultural property.