Dona Ana Traditional Cache

This is a series of geocaches to commemorate our Great State of New Mexico.  All of the geocaches are named for settlements that once thrived in Dona Ana county but some of them are now nothing more than footnotes in our history.  They have all played an important role in the settling and growth of our county and some of them are still active communities, rich with culture, architecture, and historic buildings.
 

Farming settlement 5 miles N of las Cruces on NM 28, 15 miles W of Organ Mtns. Mentioned in reports of Governor Otermin, as he left NM after trying to recapture Santa Fe in 1682. On Feb 4, members of his party wrote, "We marched on the 4th to another place which they call Dona Ana, where the senor governor and captain general prepared to go in person to a sierra which is in sight about six leagues away, call Los Organos". A legendary woman, Dona Ana Robledo was reported to have lived here in the seventeenth century and to have been outstanding for her charity and good deeds.  There are also legends of the daughter of a Spanish or Mexican army officer who was captured by the Apaches and never seen again. A letter from a Spanish officer to the Viceroy states that the Apaches in the region of Los Organos (the Organ Mtns) had killed three Spaniards and raided the sheep ranch of Dona Ana Maria Nina de Cordova. In 1839, the
Governor of Chihuahua issued a grant known as EI Ancon de Dona Ana (The Dona Ana Bend Colony) to Don Jose Maria Costales and a hundred and sixteen colonists. American military forces came in contact with the community in 1846. In 1853 there was an additional grant of land from the Governor of Chihuahua. In 1854 Mexico sold this added territory to the U.S. in the Gadsden Purchase. Post Office 1854, intermittently to present. The village of Dona Ana was the original county seat. In 1853 the county offices were moved to Las Cruces.