Page 139 - Early Naturalists of the Black Range

Darton’s Map of 1910
Continuing our presentation of maps as an insight into the study of natural history, we include the map to the right (Darton and E. F. Burchard; “Fluorspar Near Deming, New Mexico”, which appeared in Contributions to economic geology [short papers and preliminary reports) 1910 : Part I -- metals and nonmetals except fuels, p. 534). Of interest at this time are the roads which are depicted on the map. Starting at the upper right, there is (as now) a road from the Florida watering station, on the AT & SF railroad line, to Fort Cummings. There is also a road to Fort Cummings from the east and one from the Fort north. There is also a road through “Massacre Pass” to the west of Fort Cummings which divides in Starvation Draw, to the right to Silver City and the Copper Mines, to the left to Deming. There is also a road from Deming north to the west side of Cooke’s Range. These routes can still be followed, for the most part. They represent a link from the major transportation routes used first by the indigenous peoples, then the Spaniards, Mexicans, and Anglos, to the present. These routes are now replaced by a system of county, state, and federal highways which follow the same general paths. Sometimes we assume that routes of this time were associated with particular extraction areas (i.e., the roads to Fluorite Ridge were to service the fluorite mines) when in fact they were long existing routes which happened to have “modern” extraction sites along the way.
A Comparison of Paleozoic Sections In Southern New Mexico; N. H. Darton; 1917, p.31 138