This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: marcenath158 Surnames: Coronado, Bean, Magoffin, Armijo, Bloom Classification: biography Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.newmexico.counties.donaana/5292/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Three Crosses: Symbols of Mesilla Valley history By Christopher Schurtz For the Sun-News Posted: 03/23/2011 LAS CRUCES - In 1940, the state celebrated the 400th anniversary of the expedition of Spanish governor Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. That year, Las Cruces organized the Fiesta de la Frontera, a three-day series of events celebrating the cultural history of the Mesilla Valley. Fiesta organizers decided to erect three crosses on a hill a mile north of Las Cruces at the entry point of the city, where North Main Street heads east onto the mesa toward Alamogordo. The intention, organizers told the Sun-News, was to "commemorate the event from which Las Cruces got its name." Private donations paid for the installation of three crosses, made from large rounded logs and painted white. Two of the crosses stood 14 feet high, with the center cross 20 feet high. "The markers are visible from a long distance," the Sun-News reported. "The view from the length of Main Street is very effective, as the crosses top the hill almost directly in line with the thoroughfare." On the evening of July 24, an estimated 2,000 people gathered at St. Genevieve's Catholic Church downtown, a principal supporter of the project, according to the Sun-News. Led by the Rev. H.D. Buchanan, the candlelight procession made its way up Main Street to dedicate the three crosses. Flares were installed to light the crosses throughout the three-day fiesta. Crosses on the hill Later that year in December, at the suggestion of the Mesilla Valley Garden Club, the Mesilla Valley Electric Company decorated the crosses with white Christmas lights, a tradition it, and later El Paso Electric, continued every December. The three crosses became something of a tourist attraction, and the Sun-News reported various entities were using three crosses in their official logos, including the city of Las Cruces, the Mesilla Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Las Cruces Country Club, and numerous local businesses. But the crosses on the hill were also sometimes the targets of vandals. The Sun-News reported in 1947 that "in the past one or two attempts have been made to cut down the crosses or to burn them down," and that several times the lights on the crosses were smashed or stolen. The wood crosses remained at their spot until 1960, when landowner P.T. Gonzales asked El Paso Electric to remove them so he could build a home there. In April 1960, workers with El Paso Electric took down the crosses, and the Las Cruces Country Club volunteered a small space on the west edge of its golf course, just across North Main Street along Solano Drive, where they remained for 10 years. New Cruces In 1969, Students Incorporated, a newly formed organization that provided part-time employment for local students, took over the duties of beautifying the three crosses. At that time, the city's downtown was undergoing an already unpopular transformation under urban renewal, which itself would include a three crosses-themed planter at the south end of the new Downtown Mall. Led by volunteer director Rev. Lee Hobert, Students Incorporated raised donations going door-to-door and from businesses, most prominently $3,000 from James Dawes, the owner of the nearby Surplus City. Initially, the idea was to refurbish the old crosses, but soon the group determined to install brand new ones at the corner of Solano and Main. Hobert, a pastor at Mesilla Valley Christian Church, designed three 30-foot metal crosses constructed of plowshares, discs and other agricultural implements "symbolizing the agrarian economy of the area," the Sun-News reported. The three metal crosses were installed in 1970, within a small patio-like area, and officially dedicated to the city as part of Vaquero Days in April 1971, according to the Sun-News. Since then, the city of Las Cruces has maintained the crosses, including lighting them during the holidays. Original site? When the first wooden crosses were dedicated in 1940, the Sun-News reported they were "placed on the approximate spot where 40 rude crosses marked the graves of the men who were killed by Apache Indians in 1840." No archeological evidence exists confirming where the site from which the city got its name was specifically located. Several historical and later newspaper accounts suggest the site was north of the place where Las Cruces was ultimately plotted in 1849, and that there were indeed a number of crosses that existed there for years. There are several different versions of a similar story as to the crosses' origins. The written account most referred to comes from the journal of Susan Shelby Magoffin, who came through here in 1847. Magoffin wrote of passing over the spot several miles south of Dona Ana, where she was told years earlier "a party of Apaches attacked General Armijo as he returned from the Pass with a party of troops and killed some fourteen of his men, the graves of whom marked by a rude cross are now seen." Fifty years later, Maude McFie Bloom recounted in her 1903 master's thesis the version told to her by Mesilla Valley pioneer and judge Sam Bean, who said he personally saw the crosses, each crudely crafted with two pine boards, when he first came to the New Mexico Territory in 1846. By then, the site was referred to in Spanish as "the place of the crosses" or simply "Las Cruces." According to Bean, the crosses marked the graves of a 40-man Chihuahuan trade party, killed as they camped along the river's edge in a "fearful mesquite jungle" off El Camino Real. McFie conjectured the spot was close to where the Alameda Ranch Resort sanitarium was then located, near Three Crosses Avenue, just a few hundred yards west of where the three metal crosses on North Main are now. But what happened to the original crosses? No one really knows. Some accounts, written long after the fact, say that since they were well outside of town, they were forgotten about and slowly deteriorated. Another account says the crosses were gathered and burned, with the ashes sent to the relatives. It's also possible the crosses did not mark graves, but rather where someone died, like the roadside memorials, called descansos, erected for victims of traffic accidents along New Mexico streets and highways. 'Keep the Crosses' There is no indication the three memorial crosses were installed to promote Christianity per se, though certainly that may have been the motivation of some. All news accounts of the three crosses, from 1940 when the first ones were installed up to the dedication of the current crosses in 1971, only describe them as referencing or celebrating the history of the city name. It is also true, however, that local religious entities were intricately involved with both of their installations. And the grouping of three crosses is a long-established symbol of Christianity. Local churches, if anything, celebrated their presence at the city entryway. But they weren't the only ones. Las Cruces Union High School's yearbook had always been called "The Crosses," and by the early 1940s the symbols wound up within the official logos of several local organizations, entities and businesses. This question of whether or not the three crosses as a city symbol endorses religion resulted in a five year court battle launched in 2003 by Las Cruces Paul Weinbaum, who argued the city and public schools' use of three crosses in official signage violated the constitutional separation of church and state. In the final ruling issued in 2008 by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, the court agreed with the city that in this specific case the symbols simply represented the name of the city and its historical founding. Christopher Schurtz can be reached at schurtz@zianet.com. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.