Dona Ana
County
This cache is part of the New Mexico Challenge. One cache is hidden in each of New Mexico's 33 counties.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to find and log all 33 caches with a photo of yourself at the cache site.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Dona Ana county has a total area of 3,815 sq. miles. 3,807 sq. miles of it is land and 7 sq. miles of it (0.20%) is water. The county contains a number of prominent geographical features, most notably the Mesilla Valley (the flood plain of the Rio Grande river) going north to south through the center and the Organ Mountains along the county's eastern edge. Other mountain ranges in the county are the Robledo Mountains, Doña Ana Mountains, Sierra de las Uvas, the southern end of the San Andres Mountains, East Potrillo Mountains, West Potrillo Mountains and Caballo Mountains, as well as three small, isolated mountains, Tortugas (or A) Mountain on the east, Picacho Peak on the west side and Twin Peaks on the northeast side of Las Cruces. The county also includes one of New Mexico's four large lava fields, the Aden Malpais, and one of the world's largest maare volcanoes, Kilbourne Hole.
Las Cruces is the County Seat and second largest city in NM. As of the 2005 census the city had a total population of 82,671. It is the center of an agricultural region irrigated by the Rio Grande, which flows just west of the city. The city bisects the fertile Mesilla Valley, the flood plain of the Rio Grande river which extends from Hatch, New Mexico to the west side of El Paso, Texas.
Las Cruces is also the home of New Mexico State University. NMSU is New Mexico's only land grant university, citing more than 23,000 graduate and undergraduate students on the main campus and four branch campuses. The Organ Mountains are to the east of the city.
Las Cruces is home to the annual Whole Enchilada Fiesta. The fiesta's main attraction is the creation of a very large (on average 10 feet in diameter) flat red enchilada by local restaurant owner Roberto Estrada. The fiesta offers live music, rides, food vendors, and other attractions typical of fairs. The Southern New Mexico State Fair is usually held only a few days after the end of the Whole Enchilada Fiesta. The fiesta's mascot, "Twefie" (taken from the abbreviation of the fiesta's name) is a large red chile pepper wearing a sombrero. At the 2004 event, Guinness World Records confirmed that Estrada had made the world's largest flat enchilada. (There was a pre-existing record for world's longest rolled enchilada, but not for world's largest flat enchilada.)
Don Juan de Oñate and Spanish colonists established a camp in what is now Las Cruces, in the year 1598. Don Juan de Onate was the son of a noble Spanish family and his wife was the granddaughter of Cortes and the great granddaughter of Montezuma. Las Cruces' name (Spanish for "the crosses") has been a disputed topic among historians. One of the many folklore tales is that in 1830, there was an Apache massacre of a party of nine travelers, including a Mexican Army General, a priest, and five (or four) choir boys. Only one choir boy survived the massacre, and buried the others, marking the graves with crosses, according to the story that "Tio" Tuseño told tourists for a handout. According to one of the folktales, the area became known as "El Pueblo del Jardín de Las Cruces" ("The Village of the Garden of the Crosses"). A lawsuit filed seeking the removal of three crosses from the city's seal has been dismissed.
The nearby village of Mesilla was founded in 1848 by settlers from Doña Ana, a village just north of the newly established U.S.- Mexico border, who wished to stay in Mexican territory after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that year. That same year (1848), First Lieutenant Delos Bennet Sackett, a member of First U.S. Dragoons, surveyed the townsite of Las Cruces. In 1853, the region was incorporated into the United States with the Gadsden Purchase. Las Cruces was incorporated as a town in 1907.
The completion of Elephant Butte Lake in 1916 provided water for agriculture and electricity for urban development and is the largest body of water in the state. Since World War II the growth of the nearby White Sands Missile Range and its National Aeronautics and Space Administration facilities added greatly to the local economy.
There are many smaller towns in the county, including Mesilla, Doña Ana, Organ, and Hatch, home to the famous chile festival and arguably the best chiles in the world.
Go all the way to the top for a better view!
As in all desert caching, watch out for the things that bite and stick. Please leave the cache as you find it and watch out for muggles, since it has already been muggled once. The cache is in a popular recreation area, with good parking and a covered picnic area. Enjoy New Mexico Geocaching!