Taste and See
Bakery
Thursdays 4 - 6pm
• Organic spelt, hard white wheat berries.
• Rye and kamut freshly milled in my
stone burr mill and baked into
delicious breads, pizza crusts, cookies
and other goodies.
• Stone ground flour milled to order for
home bakers.
We use no white flour or
white sugar in our products
Marfa’s Swiss Café
us on Facebook
802 E. Brown St. and Cockrell
Alpine
432-386-3772
gingerhillery@mac.com
Needleworks, Etc.
Ladies Fine Clothing
Peggy Walker, Owner
Flax ˜ Brighton ˜ Tribal ˜ Double D
And other speciality brands
121 West Holland • Alpine • 432/837-3085
120 South Cedar • Pecos • 432/445-9313
M-F 10 am ‘til 6 pm • Sat. 10 am ‘til 4 pm
natural and organic gardening supplies
great selection of plants
unique gifts
garden pottery
brown dog gardens
mon, thurs - sat 9 - 6 sun 10 - 2
closed tues-wed
206 w. murphy st., alpine
18
432.837.0914
Cenizo
Wild Rose
Pass
by Bob Miles
I
n early days the Indian
trail through these moun-
tains followed the gorge
below, known as Limpia
Canyon. To avoid the floods
travelers over the San
Antonio-El Paso road, emi-
grants, U.S troops, supply
trains and the mail, chose the
higher pass famed for its
wealth of wild roses. Some 10
miles northeast of the town of
Fort Davis on State Highway
17 lies Wild Rose Pass. This
scenic spot has witnessed
much of the area’s history
pass
by.
Apaches,
Comanches, Kiowas and
other tribes whose names
have been forgotten followed
Limpia Creek through the
beautiful, steep walled
canyon for many years
before recorded history. The
Spanish expedition under
Antonio de Espejo is thought
to have passed this way in
1583, on his return to
Mexico from a failed mission
to rescue two Franciscan fri-
ars in New Mexico.
When the Mexican War
ended and gold was discov-
ered in California, hundreds
of folks headed west. The
newly acquired territory was
virtually unknown, so several
expeditions set out from cen-
tral Texas to find a suitable
route. In 1849, a small group
under lieutenants William
H.C. Whiting and William F.
Smith, both army engineers,
left San Antonio bound for El
Paso. They had 12 civilian
guides and packers. As the
Third Quarter 2015
group entered the Davis
Mountains they found them-
selves in the midst of a large
group of Mescalero Apaches
fresh from a raid in Mexico.
Several of the leaders proved
friendly
and
showed
Whiting’s party the way
through the rugged terrain.
The lieutenant later wrote
“…daylight showed us a fine
pass…. Wild roses, the only
ones I had seen in Texas,
grew luxuriantly. I named
the defile ’Wild Rose Pass’
and the brook the ‘Limpia’
[clean].” This route proved
satisfactory. Soon forty-nin-
ers on the way to the gold-
fields, the U.S. Army work-
ing on the roads and estab-
lishing a number of forts
along the trail, herders driv-
ing livestock and supply
trains to provision the forts,
settlers and other travelers all
were on the road through the
pass.
A local legend tells that
stagecoach driver William A.
“Bigfoot” Wallace once shot
a deer on the mountain
above Wild Rose Pass. The
deer tumbled down the
mountainside and stopped in
front of the coach. Bigfoot
exclaimed, “Them’s the first
mountains I ever seen where
the game comes to heel after
being killed.” One of the
most unusual caravans
through the pass was 25
camels with their Turkish,
Greek and Armenian tenders
that traveled the road in July
of 1857. The camel caravan,
under the command of
Lieutenant Edward F. Beale,
was part of the War
Department experiment to
test the suitability of using
camels to carry supplies in
the arid Southwest.
As
more
emigrants
arrived, killing or frightening
the game and using scarce
resources, the Apaches grew
less friendly and hostile con-
flicts increased.
Stage-
coaches and freighters were
attacked and looted and live-
stock stolen, often with the
loss of human lives.
The 1860 Census showed
40 people living at a stage
station at Wild Rose Pass.
When Texas joined the
Confederacy in 1861, the
pass saw Union forces
marching east out of the state
and meager Texas forces
moving west.
Then,
Confederate General Henry
H. Sibley and a large Texas
Confederate force proudly
moved up the road from San
Antonio through the pass to
capture New Mexico and
other western territories for
the South. They succeeded
in capturing most of New
Mexico, but their supply
train was captured at the
Battle of Glorieta Pass near
Santa Fe and they were
forced to retreat back to
Texas. Without supplies, the
retreat was a brutal one.
Hungry, thirsty and exhaust-
ed, the men struggled back
through Wild Rose Pass.
They may have buried a cap-