West of the Pecos

hillThe Pecos River meanders 900 miles across New Mexico and Texas before it flows into the Rio Grande. As soon as it enters Texas from New Mexico the river is immediately put to work separating Loving and Reeves Counties. It is impounded at the Red Bluff Dam and is then released to begin its journey to Seminole Canyon.

 In frontier days the Pecos River defined the limits of Eastern civilization. In fact, “to Pecos” a person became a well-known phrase—and solution—around early Roswell. It meant to dump a formerly troublesome fellow, often a rustling varmint, into the river—as a way of disposing of the body. “Law West of the Pecos” in towns like Roswell was often non-existent, and when it appeared, Justice was swift and absolute. One example: In 1878 one of John Chisum’s young cow-boys shot and killed his crew boss near here for reasons unknown. Chisum assembled a jury of other cowhands on the spot and presided over the trial himself. The jury found the boy guilty of cold-blooded murder and Chisum pronounced sentence. There were no trees in the vicinity so the cowboys propped up a wagon tongue and tried a rope to it. They sat the boy on a horse, tied the rope around his neck, and led the horse out from under him.

Roving bands of Comanches, the Shoshone group , moved south from Wyoming and reached Texas and New Mexico by the 1700s where they quickly became fine horsemen after obtaining the animals from the Spanish. Known as fierce fighters, these nomadic bison hunters raided other native groups, especially Pueblos, Navajos, and Apaches, as well as Hispanic and Anglo settlers. In the early days, the Pecos River formed a general dividing line here in Southeastern New Mexico between Apaches who usually stayed to the west and Comanches who roamed to the east. Before 1875 when the United States Army interned the last bands of Comanches at Ft. Sill, Indian Territory (later Oklahoma), Comanche Hill marked the beginning—or the end, depending on which way you were traveling—of fearful Comanche territory. comanche hill

Of the many colorful characters who have become legends of the Old West. "Hanging Judge Roy Bean," who held court sessions in his saloon along the Rio Grande River in a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas, remains one of the more fascinating.

According to the myth, Roy Bean named his saloon and town after the love of his life, Lily Langtry, a British actress he'd never met. Calling himself the "Law West of the Pecos," he is reputed to have kept a pet bear in his courtroom and sentenced dozens to the gallows, saying "Hang 'em first, try 'em later." Like most such legends, separating fact from fiction is not always so easy.