Legends Letter

August, 2008

New Additions to Legends of America

Featured Travel Destination 

Cimarron, New Mexico - Wild & Baudy Boomtown - Steeped in history and exuding every facet of the Old West, from Indians, to cowboys, land barons, pioneers on the Santa Fe Trail, to gold prospectors, Cimarron, New Mexico provides a little bit of all. Though, this charming small town in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northeast New Mexico is peaceful now, this certainly has not always been the case.

First home to numerous Indian tribes, including the Ancient Puebloans, Jicarilla Apache, and Ute; Cimarron, located on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, soon became the headquarters for the largest land grant in the United States. When Lucien B. Maxwell, a fur trapper from Illinois, came to the area in the 1840's, he married the daughter of one of the owners of the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant and by 1857, had bought out the grant, renaming it the Maxwell Land Grant. He soon built a mansion that was as large as a city block and a settlement began to grow around it.

When the town of Cimarron was officially established in 1861, it was named for the Spanish word meaning "wild" and "unbroken." The name was extremely fitting at the time, as Cimarron quickly attracted numerous mountain men, outlaws, trappers, gold seekers, traders and cowboys. The settlement also attracted the likes of such frontier characters as Clay Allison, Black Jack Ketchum, Jesse  James and Buffalo Bill Cody. Later, Cimarron would lie within the midst of the 1868 Gold Rush at Baldy Mountain, be heavily involved in the controversial Colfax County War, and become the Colfax County seat from 1872 to 1882.

Today, it's history can still be seen in its many historic buildings, including the St. James Hotel, the Aztec Mill, the century old Catholic Church, the cemetery, and several other historic structures.

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The Old West 

Old West Feuds & Range Wars - If the Old West wasn't filled with violence enough -- stemming from Indian raids, numerous outlaws, and the ever-present vigilantes trying to control them, then another common event was the frequent feuds, range wars, and political conflicts that created yet more bloodshed in the Wild West.

The violence created in these many battles often occurred where there was no law or the law was too "weak" to enforce any type of change. Similar to the vigilantes, those who felt they were unduly wronged, were prone to take the law into their own hands.

Sometimes these feuds were the result of long-running arguments between two groups of people, especially families or clans, and perhaps may have started decades earlier over the smallest insult. One thing leads to another until cycles of retaliation can last for generations.

However, the vast majority of the well-known feuds in the American West were the result of political confrontations or land control. For those involved, their actions were rarely seen as lawless, but rather a means to bringing some kind of "law" to an area where chaos tended to prevail.

Regardless of the reasons, these "wars" resulted in hundreds of deaths, when vengeance was taken and bloody vendettas resulted in warring factions continuing to battle, sometimes for years.

We've written about a number of these Old West Feuds, check these out: Denver City Hall War, El Paso Salt War, Lincoln County War, Texas Regulator-Moderator War, Johnson County War, Pleasant Valley War, the Slicker War, and lots more.

Ghostly & Other Strange Legends

Cryptozoology And Bigfoot - With yet one more Bigfoot Hoax recently, we thought it only appropriate to look at this large critter again. Does Bigfoot really exist? Part of me thinks so – all those people couldn’t possibly be deranged or seeing things, could they? But, where are the bodies? Where are the bones? What about their scat? Hmmm. Maybe it is just a legend. But, there is another explanation according to Robert Benjamin. Bigfoot just might be a spiritual being, rather than a "real-life" hairy creature. Here is a bit of his story:

Bigfoot has been sighted throughout the United States, from the 16th Century to present. The first reported sightings were by Native Americans. He was called numerous names by different Indian tribes, 'sasquatch' was only one of over 50 different Indian names given to the creature. This creature looks more like a hairy man than an ape or monkey. It is mostly reported as being between 6 - 8 feet tall, but has been sighted with a smaller female and even offspring, as small as human children. The larger, adult male of the species is rugged, and built very muscular. It's shoulders are wide, and it has very little neck area. It has short brown to black hair covering it's body, with longer hair on the head. Most reports have the creatures eyes glowing or shining red in the dark when reflected by a flashlight or some other light source.

Indians almost all believe Bigfoot is a non-physical creature. Some Indian tribes mention that they have seen the creature transform into a wolf. Others think that these creatures live in another dimension from the physical plane, but can come here as they desire. Indians also believe Bigfoot has great psychic abilities, reports of sightings show the creature can be visible to some people, while at the same time remain invisible to others in the same group. There are many reports from non-Indians who saw the creature after a UFO sighting. And others that have searched for, and researched Bigfoot for years are coming to the conclusion that the creature is a spiritual being, because he can appear or disappear at will.

The creatures episodes of hitting sticks and rock throwing may be the best evidence we have to show that they are spiritual beings. If you research paranormal cases involving 'poltergeist' incidents, you will soon realize that many of the cases involve the throwing or dropping of stones against houses, and on the roofs of the homes where the poltergeist attacks are occurring. In many of the poltergeist cases, the stones being dropped and thrown were the beginning of the infestation, or encounter, just like in the Bigfoot cases.

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The Old West 

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