Saturday, November 15, 2008

Preserving El Camino Real trail

Paul Harden For El Defensor Chieftain

One of the treasures of New Mexico is the famed El Camino Real trail. It was along this trail that thousands of colonists from Spain and Mexico settled the Rio Grande as early as 1598. Today, it symbolizes the families, culture and heritage of New Mexico.

The Camino Real, now designated a National Historic Trail, signifies the trail as a national treasure. Much of the undisturbed trail in New Mexico is located in Sierra and Socorro counties.

However, there's a problem. Seeing little use since the 1880s, some of the trail is becoming faintly visible, threatened by development in other areas and in some places has completely disappeared.

A special workshop, sponsored by El Camino Real International Heritage Center Foundation and the National Park Service, was held Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 8-9, on preserving the trail through identification and mapping techniques.

The workshop was conducted by National Preservation Officer David Welch and archaeologist Leslie Fryman of the Oregon California Trails Association. The famous Oregon Trail, which stretches 2,000 miles from St. Louis, Mo., to California is similar in many way to El Camino The Oregon Trail, however, was only used for about 30 years, Camino Real was in use for more than 300 years.

Workshop training was based on the "Mapping Emigrant Trails Guidebook," developed by OCTA for the Oregon Trail. This guidebook has become the national standard for identifying, documenting and marking historic emigrant trails. Techniques from using historic maps to more modern means such as using GoogleEarth and global satellite positioning were taught.

Members of El Camino Real International Heritage Center Foundation, and the Camino Real Trails Association, have long worked to identify and map the Camino Real. The workshop was aimed at ensuring future efforts will be consistent with national standards.

Some of the local attendees at the workshop were Tom Harper, Anna Applebee, Linda Gonzales, Charles Millar, Paul Harden, and Sharon and Jerry Sintz. Mike Bilbo and Andi Sullivan, of the Socorro Office of the Bureau of Land Management, also attended and offered their expertise on the trail. Other registrants were from the National Park Service and the newly formed Camino Real de Tejas Trails Association, based in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Twenty registrants participated in the field activities, held on Sunday, which included identifying, classifying and mapping remnants of the Camino Real in the Parida and Johnson Hill areas. The Pueblito area is a particularly challenging area because there seems to be numerous paths of El Camino Real through the Parida arroyo and over Parida Hill to the north. This is further complicated by criss-crossing automobile tracks and remnants of the old Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, the precursor to U. S. 60. The participants sorted out the maze of trails using the identification skills learned at the workshop. South of Pueblito, much of the Camino Real is today's Bosquecito Road.

David Welch commented at the conclusion of the field work, "I have to drive for hours to reach the Oregon Trail. The people of Socorro are fortunate to have this historic landmark in their back yard."

OCTA has placed markers along the Oregon Trail at 1-mile intervals to permanently mark the historic trail. Other historic trails are participating in the same marking program. Part of this training is to eventually mark El Camino Real with similar trail markers to preserve it's location for future generations.

If you are interested in learning more about El Camino Real trail, or where it is located in Socorro County, several slide presentations and talks will be given Saturday, Nov. 15, at El Camino Real International Heritage Center, from 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Guest speakers will include local trail historians Bennie Barreras, Paul Harden, Tom Harper and archaeologist Mike Marshall.

All events are included in the cost of monument admission: $5 adults, children 16 and under are free. School groups are free. For more information, call 575-854-3600, or visit www.elcaminoreal.org.

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