Fiestas y Auga Caliente

photo by author, shirt by dukatt!

Mark Twain did not say “Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.” It’s a great quote, and a well-worn one, but there’s no reliable evidence linking it to Twain. This is Myth #122, debunked courtesy of the Nevada State Library and Archives. Discovered during a troll for water quotes, this historical tidbit got me thinking about Sherry Fletcher, Truth or Consequences town historian, retired educator, Campo Espinosa founder, and champion of all manner of causes. Sherry is a stickler for solid historical evidence. It is a fine sight to see when Sherry is faced with a dubious place narrative or other fiction -masked-as-historical-fact. Her eyes narrow and spark, her shoulders square, and she demands to know where the evidence is located. What file, photo or newspaper will confirm and make reliable whatever history is being spun? Sherry is a show me the money kind of scholar, and her currency is the historical record. She has combed the global archives reading and translating Spanish accounts of regional pre-colonial flora and fauna in order to restore a small part of the vivid New Mexico landscape to its ancient roots. And to learn her history of place. Campo Espinosa, the wetland wildlife refuge that she and her husband Baxter have nurtured into being out by Chuchillo Bridge on the way to Elephant Butte, "is an emerging jewel, nurtured by the springs once hidden in the stifling salt cedar growth." (http://www.enchantment.coop/features/0404Salt.html)

Photo from Sally Bickley's article on Campo Espinosa. See link above. 

History is tricky, but a good guide is invaluable. Anyone who has ever trekked through a strange place can attest to this fact. Sherry Fletcher and Destiny Mitchell were the tour bus guides during the 4th Annual Hot Springs Festival last Sunday. I signed up to take a tour with each. I missed Destiny's bus, which I heard was a rollicking good time. I made Sherry's however, and had a a terrific go around the Hor Springs Historic Bathhouse District, visiting places I have been familiar with for years. The spa tour stopped at 8 of the 10 bathhouses in town. The spas are resplendent. Amenities  range from gorgeously inviting rooms, divine patios and spectacular views to well-stocked gift shops and gracious hosts. And water. Always there is the water. These places are jewels too. There is a dialogue in town about 'figuring out' the identity of the town in order to 'figure out' the future of the town. But as far as I can figure, and my math feels pretty solid, the town has always been about water. It is the it that defines this there. Water is the lifeblood of the river, one that kills in  dough or torrential flood. It is the reason the Jornada del Muerto is a journey of death. It is etched in muddy green on the mental map of every last ranchers who knows every last creek and watering hole. It is the dam that shifted the economy from mining, where water bored through mountains and sluiced weath from rock. It was the crown of modernization, rooted in agriculture before World War I. Water wedded to technology promised an empire Eden in the arid west. It founds recreation, leisure and wetland conservation. From the first healing hot waters that bubbled up in the once swampy and river-washed historic district, the identity of this town is awash in water.

"The Hot Springs of Truth or Consequences" Posted by Johnny_Mango

Every bathhouse in town is extraordinary, for more than just the water. But like a lot of New Mexico, you have to venture in a ways. A friend once remarked New Mexico is deceptively unremarkable. The sense of place, the feeling you are somewhere distinctive and striking, is powerful in New Mexico. It can take a while to take hold, but it rarely lets go. You cannot easily tell from the front of places what lies behind. Enter an ordinary doorway and emerge into a courtyard where wisterias run riot and old benches line shady portals. The desert teems with intricate and colorful life, but it can blur by in a streak of brown from a fast moving car. Our beauty is also the spectacular kind. Even in a fast car, blue skies, hot pink sunsets and vast sweeps of county cannot be ignored. These paradoxes are evident in Truth or Consequences.  Beauty is in plain sight. It is in the historic downtown that evokes mid-century American Main Streets and the sweep of the Caballo Mountains that loom above town. But is is also obscured in empty dusty buildings that have not been re-purposed in this time of economic stagnation, or tucked away out of sight behind ordinary adobe or cement walls where hot mineral waterfalls bubble over iridescent stones.

"The Hot Springs of Truth or Consequences" Posted by Johnny_Mango

Sometimes the  sense of place mostly absent, like it is in some newer parts of town that reflect post-WWII automobile-centered areas where architecture, landscape and other elements generally ignore pedestrians all together. And forget public spaces in these places. This is true all over the world. And it has been the demise a many places, as place identities and senses of place are lost to the chain-store nowhere of everywhere. The strong visuals and experience that go into creating a sense of place operate best from a pedestrian scale in contained or developed spaces. This is why most historic districts have a good feel when you walk around them, because you can walk around them. The Healing Water's Trail, which will be featured here next week, illustrates this most valuable asset and adds to the attraction of place. The name gets to the heart and  soul of this town. In one of my favorite interviews I asked someone to conjure T or C  in ten years. What would it be, I asked this great lady. What it has always been she said, a healing place. And it will be led by women she added, because they honor the water. Women will heal, and business will be steady, because there is a lot to heal. Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying a woman is like a tea bag,  you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. 

If New Mexicans can agree on anything, we can agree that water is the heart and lifeblood of our body politic. We generally disagree about where the heart should be pumping our lifeblood to in the said same body politic. Do we irrigate? If we do, do we irrigate crops or grass or golf courses? Even if you are an agriculturalist, are the crops for subsistence, traditional community preservation and acequia rights, small-scale farming, or large-scale industrial agriculture? Is the water for Intel and industry, or for the silvery minnow and riparian areas? Is the water for Mexico and treaty obligations, or for recreation? There is one idea in these comparisons that comes through, and that is the idea that this resource is finite, and Mark Twain may not have said the fighting words, but people love this quote for a reason. Thousands have lived without love, wrote W. H. Auden, not one without water.

nwfoodnews.com

I generally hold that the finite pie model is a a poor model to create sustainable places. It is a zero-sum game model. There is a pie, and you either get your crumb, for some of us, or your huge piece for the lucky few, or you do without like a lot do. Once the pie is gone it is gone. This kind of thinking does not allow the ingenuity and collaboration necessary to grow the pie so more people can have a share. This is a value adding outlook. Rather than fight over each tourist dollar, for example, you encourage them to experience all that the town has to offer. They respond by bringing back friends. But water, like history, is tricky. There are obligations to a lot of people, and the interpretations of value, cause, effect, and proof are numerous and tied to specific ends . We can conserve and harvest water to degrees that are unimaginable now, and should forthright, but we just can't make more. There is a notice on the study of the mineral water and geothermal springs that the town rests on, in all kinds of ways going up around town. The City has called in the bright minds of New Mexico Tech to assess the state of the water, to quell the history being written in conjecture and speculation.

http://hotspringsfestival.com

American used to be a network of rural places that tied into great urban cities. The last century has seen profound changes. How places emerge and transform, and how places remain and persist reflect the notion that place is powerful. Sherry tells people I write about the Power of Place, to borrow a term from place historian and place maker Delores Hayden. I enjoy this description of my work, not that I am writing so much as this point. There is too much to learn. I got lost in the history of water in the West for an entire year before I got to the town. During the tour, Sherry and I shared a laugh over the often repeated place narrative that the local springs having an ancient history of peace-loving soaking. This is a common historical narrative of Hot Water towns in the US. The idea is that hot water is sacred is not a stretch. The healing powers of water are well-documented, although science is just catching up to other ways of knowing. The idea that that hot springs were places where first nations people laid down arms and soaked in mutual peace, love and understanding is interesting. I like it, and I think there is some good evidence that there were site like this in other regions of the United States. I have yet to come across much evidence in this region's historical record to stand by this narrative. An Apache  reservation up by the Warm Springs existed, and there is a photo on the banner by the Charles Hotel and Bathhouse. This history is not known to me. I do love the old picture above that shows a you-are-welcome-to-get-the-hell-away-from-here-with-that-camera look.

Photo shows Warm Springs Apache Reservation

In an overview of the geothermal properties of the area,  John W. Lund of the Geo-Heat Center and James C. Witcher of the Southwest Technology Development Institute at NMSU write that, "It is said that Indians in the region used the springs as “neutral grounds” long before Europeans settled the area. Indian tribes no doubt gathered here without conflict for the trading, religious purposes, to bathe, and to alleviate ailments." (20,  http://geoheat.oit.edu/bulletin/bull23-4/art5.pdf). No doubt indeed. And said by who is not evident in the bibliography. The T or C Chamber of Commerce writes that "Because of the hot mineral springs which issued from the ground, the site of the present Truth or Consequences was considered "neutral grounds" by the Southwestern Indians long before white settlement of the area.  Here they gathered without conflict for the inter-tribal exchange and to bathe their wounds and other ailments."  There are some questions about the geography of that statement according to Sherry, in addition to a host of other accuracy problems .

But here is the great thing, even when it means fighting words. All of these stories come from our shared experiences of place, and the relationships we have with each other and the world around us. These are the cultural landscapes that we fight to maintain and sustain, because they are home. And it does not matter if this is home for thousands or hundreds or dozens of years, or a person just want to feel at home for a weekend. If you are in a place you are part of what makes that place. And the Forth Annual Hot Springs Festival was a great place to be on a beautiful day and evening in early October. The tour was fantastic, the bands were playing, the kids were laughing, folks were dancing and the beer, if not whiskey, was for drinking. And the water, as I can attest from my free soak at La Paloma gifted during the tour, was for healing.