2002 Most Endangered

Most Endangered Places in New Mexico 2002

• White Sands National Monument Visitor Center, Otero
  
• Carrizozo Woman's Club, Lincoln
  
• D.D. Monroe Civic Building, Union
  
• New Mexico Public Welfare Building (The Villagra Building), Santa Fe
  
• The Whittlesey House, Bernalillo
  
• Edgewood Schoolhouse, Santa Fe
  
• Glorieta Battlefield, Santa Fe
  
• Castaneda Hotel, San Miguel
  
• The Hondo Valley, Lincoln
  
• Las Cruces Downtown Main Street, Dona Ana
  

The Hondo Valley, Lincoln

Significance: Shaped as a cultural landscape by Hispanic farmers and ranchers beginning in the 1850s, the Hondo Valley gained fame as a result of the Lincoln County War of the 1880s. Through the notoriety of that war and its notorious folk hero, Billy the Kid, the landscape and landmarks of the Hondo Valley have assumed a key place not only in New Mexico history but in the representation of the American West in popular culture. In the 20th century, the Hondo Valley became an internationally known visual representation of New Mexico through the work of leading 20th century artists who called it home. An adapted 1930s schoolhouse today serves as home and studio to internationally acclaimed artist Luis Jimenez. San Patricio grew famous with Peter Hurd, son-in-law of N.C. Wyeth. The work of Hurd, Henriette Wyeth, John Meigs, Michael Hurd, Carol Hurd Rogers, Peter Rogers and others has spread knowledge of the Hondo Valley?s cultural landscape. The hand-dug communal acequia system continues to operate today, not only as irrigation but also as a social system and a traditional and legal means of allocating a scarce resource.

Threat: Proposed widening of U.S. Highway 70, now the New Mexico Department of Transportation?s highest priority, would increase the volume and speed of traffic, increase air and water pollution, require a greater number of road cuts, endanger the watershed and riparian habitat, and destroy or damage tree lines, acequias, fruit stands and certain older adobe buildings.

UPDATE: "Unfortunate" is the report of the status of the Hondo Valley. The New Mexico State Transportation Department is moving ahead at a very progressive pace. As the marquee states "MAJOR CONSTRUCTION THROUGH THE HONDO VALLEY". Reporters for the Hondo Valley state, "Local residents who were originally for the highway are now shocked to realize the amount of land the ?improvements? require of their property; and the visual impact this is having on our Valley." To monitor the project the Alliance is a participant in a "Programmatic Agreement" with the Federal Highway Administration, the New Mexico State Department of Transportation, the State Historic Preservation Office, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Mescalero Apache Tribe, and St. Anne?s Episcopal Church in the valley. In the process of monitoring the design and construction, the Federal Highway Administration has yet to respond to effects on National Register eligible Hondo Valley acequia and new information affecting the historic rural landscape and the apple industry. Either of these could change the design of the road.