Rt 66 Tucumcari Renewed Traditional Cache
Alpine Reviewer: As I have not received an update from the cache owner, I am archiving this cache to keep it from continually showing up in search lists, and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. If you (the cache owner) wish to repair/replace the cache sometime in the future, please contact me, and assuming it meets the guidelines, I will be happy to unarchive it.
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Camo matchholder in a park off old Rt 66 in Tucumcari, NM.
My other Rt 66 cache in Tucumari either went bye-bye or got buried in junk; either way, this was significant hint to go find another hiding place (no way I would leave out the big T of my Rt 66 series). This park is a much nicer area with a brand new cache.
I am interested if the locals think this hiding place is too obvious and will be quickly muggled. It seemed a serene and inconspicuous location at the time, but the park was empty (so I am adding a be stealthy icon, which I really do not like to do). Would like to keep this cache in the park for some time.
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There is an often-quoted tale that the name arose from an incident in which an Apache chief's daughter, Kari, was beloved by a brave called Tocom is pure fiction. The name's real origin is obscure, but the consensus is that it comes from a Plains Indian word meaning "lookout" and was applied to Tucumcari Mountain, 4,956 ft., the dramatic natural lookout just 2 miles south of town.
Efforts to trace the name to specific words in a specific Indian language, however, have been inconclusive. As T.M. Pearce summarized after his investigation: "The most convincing explanation is contributed by Elliott Canonge, Oklahoma linguist, who writes that the name is Comanche tukamukaru, 'to lie in wait for someone or something to approach.' According to Felix Kowena, his Comanche informant, this particular mountain was frequently used as a lookout by Comanche war parties."
Fray Angelico Chavez discovered a 1777 burial record mentioning a Comanche woman and her child captured in a battle at Cuchuncari, apparently an early version of Tucumcari. But other etymologies also are possible; a West Texas anthropologist believes it comes from a Kiowa word meaning "breast."
The town of Tucumcari appeared much later than the name. In 1901 the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad extended its line to here, and half the population of nearby Liberty moved to the unnamed tent city. Prairie winds caught clothing and rags and scattered them among the brush, giving the town its first nickname, Ragtown. The camp's saloons and gambling halls soon attracted outlaws and rowdies, and before long the camp had another nickname, Six-shooter Siding.
The town's first formal name was Douglas, given for reasons unknown, but this was short-lived, and soon the name Tucumcari was adopted. Tucumcari Lake, immediately north and east of Tucumcari, is a large natural lake, for centuries a watering place for Indians, comancheros, and cattle drivers on the Goodnight-Loving Trail.
From “The Place Names of New Mexico” Revised Edition, by Robert Julyan
*** Congrats to barbcherry for FTF!!! ***
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
gerr pebgpu
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