Charles Bishop Eddy                                                                       

 Charles Bishop Eddy was born in Milford, New York, in 1857. His father was a successful merchant there, and had become quite wealthy. Charles Bishop and his brother, John Arthur, who was four years older, decided to try their success in the west and, with the help of an uncle, founded the Eddy-Bissell Cattle Company in southern Colorado in the early1880's. Charles Eddy then traveled further west by stagecoach and settled in the lower Pecos Valley. He acquired  a ranch called Halagueno, and a herd of cattle in the Southeaster section of Lincoln County, now present day Eddy County. Charles Eddy left the Pecos Valley after a while and went to Colorado and tinkered in mining , although he had no interest in the mining trade. Early on  Pat Garrett and John Hagerman and Eddy were involved in the water irrigation plans that failed, and were taken over by Hagerman.  Charles Eddy   realized the need for a good attorney to represent them, and were fortunate enough to find a young lawyer from Silver City named William Ashton Hawkins..
    Charles Bishop Eddy had convinced a wealthy mining man from Colorado, named James John Hagerman, to invest heavily in the Pecos irrigation project and also his plan to organize a railroad line from Pecos, Texas to Eddy, which would later be extended on to Roswell. Despite vigorous efforts, the project continued to be unsuccessful financially, and required more and more capital in order to stay solvent. Because of this, serious conflicts arose between Hagerman and Charles Eddy. The two were both strong willed, and constantly battled over the decisions that had to be made. By July 1898, the Pecos Irrigation and Improvement Company had been declared insolvent, and went into receivership at that time.
    Charles Bishop Eddy and his brother had earlier decided it was in their best interest to pursue other projects, pull out of the irrigation situation, and leave it in the hands of Hagerman to overcome. This action left a bad taste in the mouths of many people in Eddy, since Charles Bishop had been the president of the Eddy Bank and president of the newly formed railroad, in addition to his position on the irrigation project. An election was held, and the name of the town was officially changed from Eddy to Carlsbad, its present name." Excerpts taken from the Mountain Monthly"

Patrick Floyd Garrett

                       Patrick Floyd Garrett was born June 5 1850 in Chamber County, Alabama, the son of Col, John L Garrett and Elizabeth Jarvis. He died February 28, 1908.in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. He grew up on a prosperous Louisiana plantation near Haynesville in Claiborne Parish.   After the death of his parents and a disagreeable estate settlement among the children Garrett left his home and moved to  Texas, first settling in Dallas County, Texas .  After almost 10 years of drifting around Texas, in 1879 Garrett finally settled in Lincoln County, New Mexico, where he won election as sheriff on November 7, 1880. During this time Lincoln County was in the final days of a war between two powerful groups of ranchers and businessmen, both of which had hired former cowboys to become illegal soldiers and assassins. When a reward was posted for Billy The Kid, Garrett set out to track him down and bring him in.

After a failed attempt to ambush the Kid near Fort Sumner in December 1880, Garrett tracked him to a cabin near Stinking Springs, New Mexico, where he finally arrested the young gunslinger. A Lincoln County jury quickly found the Kid guilty of murder and sentenced him to hang, but while Garrett was out of town on April 28, 1881, Billy the Kid managed to kill two of his guards and escape. Garrett tracked the kid to  Fort Sumner on the night of July 14, 1881 and shot him dead.

In 1884, after failing to be elected a state senator, Garrett became captain of the LS Texas Rangers, a group of rangers sent by Governor John Ireland to the Panhandle to protect ranchers from rustlers. He served only a few weeks and then moved to Roswell, New Mexico, where he devised irrigation plans along with Charles Eddy. It was Pat Garrett that devised the original plan for obtaining water for the arid lands. Garrett with his limited ability to promote such a large project left the formalities to Eddy to handle.  Garrett became a stockholder but financial straits caused to him to pull out of the dealings with Eddy. He then moved to  Uvalde, Texas, where he lived from 1891 to 1896. In 1896 New Mexico governor William T. Thornton asked him to become the Dona Ana County Sheriff. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Garrett customs collector in El Paso, but did not reappoint him in 1906. Garrett returned to his ranch in the San Andres Mountains in southern New Mexico.

The shooting of Billy The Kid  earned Garrett  admiration from some and hatred from others. It is definitely known that Garrett left a lot of enemies in his wake. Garrett was fond of drinking and gambling which left him often broke and in dire straits.  Yet he always favored the side of the law. It is believed Garret was set up to die as he himself had tracked down outlaws. Pat Garrett was murdered on February 28, 1908, on a  mesquite covered desert mail road a few miles east of Las Cruces, New Mexico. It is still unproven who actually shot Pat Garrett not once, but twice. The head wound to the back of the head causing the mortal wound.

Theodore Roosevelt to Patrick J. Hurley; Secretary of War under Herbert Hoover. In a letter to Oscar Garrett, son of Pat, Hurley wrote: "When your father was killed, President Roosevelt made a statement  to the effect that Pat Garrett was not only the man who upheld' the arm of the law and order in New Mexico, he was the first man to introduce law and order. In my time and yours, I hope that we will be able to see that justice is done to the character of the greatest New Mexican, Pat Garrett."
 The first wife of Patrick Floyd Garrett was Juanita Gutiérrez whom he married in 1877, after her death a few months later he married her sister Apolinaria in January 14, 1880. Apoliinaria was born Feb. 1862. The children of Juanita and  Pat Garrett were Ida, Elizabeth born Nov 1884, Dudley Poe born June 1882, Annie G. born Nov 1887, Patrick Floyd born Feb 1896, Pauline born Sept 1899, Oscar Lohman, and Jarvis Powers Garrett. Note the 1910 census of Las Cruces New Mexico lists the mother of Apolinaria as Felciana Valdez. The oldest daughter Ida was deceased as of the 1900 census. Interesting to note Pat Garrett's first wife Juanita was buried in the same cemetery as  Billy The Kid  Fort Sumner, New Mexico

Charles Goodnight

Charles Goodnight was born in Macoupin County, Illinois, on 5th March, 1836.the fourth child of Charles and Charlotte (Collier) Goodnight. After the death of his father his mother took him to live in Milam County, Texas.

In 1857 Goodnight became a Texas Ranger and fought during the Indian Wars.  He also became an Indian scout and was involved in the killing of the Comanche chief, Peta Nocona. He also served as a scout during the Civil War. After the war Goodnight decided to become involved in the cattle business. He joined up with Oliver Loving to take cattle from Fort Belknap in Texas to Fort Sumner in New Mexico. The trail they traveled moving the  herds of cattle became known as the Goodnight-Loving trail. In 1867 after the death of his good friend Oliver Loving, Goodnight continued to organize cattle drives of his own.

In 1871 Goodnight joined forces with John Chisum and they extended the trail from Alamogordo Creek to Granda, Colorado. Charles Goodnight finally settled in  Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, where he raised Durham, Hereford and Angus cattle. This venture was a great success and he soon had a million acres of land and 100,000 head of cattle. He cross bred Longhorn with  Hereford cattle to produce excellent beef animals. He also tried to cross his cattle with buffalo. Though he was unsuccessful doing so he still continued to create cattle trails. In 1877 Goodnight joined forces with John G. Adair to create a trail from his farm to Dodge City. In 1880 Goodnight established the Panhandle Stockman's Association to rid the region of outlaws. The organization also attempted to improve the quality of the regions cattle. Charles Goodnight died in Tucson, Arizona, on 12th December, 1929.

James John Hagerman

  James John  Hagerman was born March 23, 1838, near Port Hope, Ontario, in Canada. His parents were James and Margaret (Crawford) Hagerman, immigrants of Scandinavian descent. The family moved to Newport, Michigan, in 1843. The family became naturalized American citizens in 1848Hagerman went to the University of Michigan in 1857. While in college, Hagerman took a job as a clerk with the Milwaukee Iron Company, a manufacturer of railroad ties. He continued working there after graduation in 1861, and by 1863 had so impressed the company's owners that he was made business manager of the firm. Hagerman married Anna Osborne in 1867. The couple had two sons, Percy and Herbert. James. J. Hagerman contracted pulmonary tuberculosis in 1873. Although he recovered, his health was greatly weakened for the remainder of his life.

As the country recovered from the Panic of 1873, Hagerman anticipated the increased need for iron ore. When the Menominee Mining Company was organized in 1877, Hagerman became an investor in and president of the firm. Using his knowledge of iron deposits gained while working for the Milwaukee Iron Co., Hagerman enabled the firm to become highly successful. The company's first successful iron operation was the Norway Mine. Hagerman built the nearby town of Norway, Michigan, to provide housing and services for the company's employees. Hagerman's health deteriorated in 1881, and he moved to Switzerland. The family soon left for Italy, and purchased a residence in Milan After his health improved he moved back to Colorado. He then became in contact with Charles Eddy who sought him ought for financial backing. Against the wishes of his wife thus began the adventures of Hagerman into the irrigation of Eddy County.

J. J. Hagerman is considered one of the most important men in New Mexico history. Along with John Chisum, Charles Eddy and Robert Tansill, Hagerman deeply influenced development of the Carlsbad area. The development of railroads and irrigation in the region would not have occurred nearly as quickly without his financial backing and business acumen. He founded and built up towns and cities, donated large plots of land for public and educational use, and in general is considered one of the 'founders' of modern New Mexico

William Ashton Hawkins

William Ashton Hawkins was born in Huntingdon, West Tennessee on April 6, 1861. He attended schools in Huntingdon, and began the study of law in the office of his uncle, Alvin Hawkins, who later became governor of Tennessee. During his uncle’s term as governor, Hawkins moved to Nashville, attended law school at Vanderbilt University, and got a job in the State House. After the death of his wife and child in Silver City New Mexico. He traveled to Nashville to bury his wife and child. Upon his return he had two offers for employment one was from an old friend, Ed Doheny, who had left Silver City for California, and would later become one of the wealthiest men in America through his oil business. He hoped to mine the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles to make road pavement, and wanted Hawkins to join him. The second offer was a telegram from Santa Fe stating, “I hope you will be able to come to Santa Fe and talk with me. I have a proposition I think would be very interesting to you.” It was simply signed, “Eddy.” The telegram was very intriguing, and Hawkins was torn between the two offers. He took the stage to Deming and had decided he would get on the first train that was leaving - either to the east or to the west. The first train to leave went east to El Paso, where he boarded a train to Santa Fe and a meeting with Charles Bishop Eddy.

Hawkins accompanied Charles Bishop Eddy on a promotional trip to New York, where they talked to bankers and capitalists, outlining plans for the formation of corporations and establishment of bond issues necessary for the promotion and construction of the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad from El Paso northward. Hawkins then guided Eddy through all the legal trials and tribulations involved. He recommended that Eddy establish a $10,000 bond with the El Paso City Council, which convinced them that the Eddy company meant business, and should be the railroad they would deal with. Hawkins from there on became the attorney for Eddy. He performed various legal duties securing legal documents and deeds for Eddy. It soon became apparent that the project was eventually doomed to failure. Floods on the Pecos washed out dams and canals, requiring more capital to continue, and Eddy’s relationship with investor James John Hagerman was a touchy arrangement with both men being strong willed and argumentative. In July of 1898, the Pecos Irrigation and Improvement Company was declared insolvent, and went into receivership. The Eddy brothers had previously announced they were retiring from the Pecos Valley, and that Hagerman would carry on with the project. Charles Eddy told Hawkins of a new plan to form a railroad and so Hawkins moved on with Eddy. Hawkins could have stayed in Eddy and helped Hagerman, but chose instead to move to El Paso and form a law practice there in 1895. He continued to serve as the Eddy brothers’ attorney until 1905. He then was elected to the Territorial Legislature where he represented Dona Ana, Grant, Luna and Otero counties. William Ashton Hawkins died in Albuquerque on June 22, 1939 at the age of 78, after an eventful life. He argued that he had accomplished nothing great in life; that he had only done the best he could through the gifts with which he had been endowed.

    

Oliver Loving

Oliver Loving, cattle driver, son of Joseph and Susannah Mary Loving, was born in Hopkins County, Kentucky, on December 4, 1812. On January 12, 1833, he married Susan Doggett Morgan, and for the next ten years he farmed in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. The Loving' s became the parents of nine children, four of whom were born in Texas. In 1843 Loving and his brother and brother-in-law moved their families to Texas. In the Peters colony, Loving received 639.3 acres of land in three patents and counties-Collin, Dallas, and Parker. The family stopped for a year in Lamar County and had settled in Collin County before 1850. Loving farmed and, to feed his growing family, hauled freight. By 1855 the Loving's had moved to the future Palo Pinto county, where they ran a country store near Keechi Creek and ranched. The first assessment roll of Palo Pinto County, taken in 1857, listed Loving with 1,000 acres of land. To market his large herd, Loving drove them out of Texas. In 1857 he entrusted his nineteen-year-old son, William, to drive his and his neighbors' cattle to Illinois up the Shawnee Trail. The drive made a profit of thirty-six dollars a head and encouraged Loving to repeat the trek successfully the next year with John Durkee.

During the war Loving was commissioned to drive cattle to Confederate forces along the Mississippi. When the war ended, the Confederate government reportedly owed him between $100,000 and $250,000. To make matters worse, the usual cattle markets were inadequate for the available supply. In 1866, having heard about the probable need for cattle at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where some 8,000 Indians had been settled on a reservation, Loving gathered a herd, combined it with that of Charles Goodnight, and began a long drive to the fort. Their route later became known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail, although it had been used by other cattlemen. The trail followed the path of the Butterfield Overland Mail to the future site of Fort Concho and turned north at the Pecos, leading to Fort Sumner and on to Denver. The two cattlemen sold beef to the army for $12,000 in gold. Loving drove the stock cattle on to Colorado and sold them near Denver, while Goodnight returned to Weatherford, Texas, with the gold and for a second herd. The two men were reunited in southern New Mexico, where they established a ranch at Bosque Grande, about forty miles south of Fort Sumner. They spent the winter of 1866-67 there and supplied cattle from the ranch to Fort Sumner and Santa Fe.

In the spring of 1867 Loving and Goodnight returned to Texas, ready to start a new drive. The third drive was slowed by heavy rains and Indian threats. Loving went ahead of the herd for contract bidding. He took only Bill Wilson, a trusted scout, with him. Although he told Goodnight that he would travel at night through Indian country, Loving became impatient and pushed ahead during the day. His careless action brought an Indian attack in which he was seriously wounded. The weakened Loving sent Wilson back to the herd, eluded the Indians, and with the aid of Mexican traders reached Fort Sumner, only to die there of gangrene on September 25, 1867. Before Loving died Goodnight assured him that his wish to be buried in Texas would be carried out. After a temporary burial at Fort Sumner, while Goodnight drove the herd on to Colorado, Goodnight had Loving's body exhumed and carried home. Stories differ as to who accompanied the body back to Weatherford, but he was reburied there in Greenwood Cemetery on March 4, 1868, with Masonic honors. Loving has been inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Loving County, Texas, and Loving, New Mexico, are named in his honor.

Robert Weems Tansill

Robert Weems Tansill and his wife Mary Elizabeth Motter Tansill.  The Tansills were pioneers in the development of the lower Pecos River Valley, assisted in the planning of the town of Eddy (now known as Carlsbad), and were instrumental in initiating, financing, and promoting the corporate irrigation companies that produced the extensive system of dams, reservoirs, and canals that today comprise the Carlsbad Irrigation District.  The house in La Huerta, which is the property in New Mexico most directly associated with Robert and Mary Tansill and the last of their residences in the country to have survived, is nominated under Criterion B as the property that best preserves evidence of their pioneering efforts to transform the lower Pecos River Valley into a southwestern agricultural Mecca and to promote the curative aspects of the regions climate to health seekers nationwide

James Larkin White

 Jim White was born  in Mason County, Texas, on July 11, 1882, and unbeknown to him is place in history of the State of New Mexico is sealed.  In 1892 the White family moved to New Mexico when Jim was a young boy.  In his own words in talking about finding the cavern he stated  "I thought it was a volcano," Jim mused, "but, then, I'd never seen a volcano-nor never before had I seen bats swarm, for that matter. During my life on the range I'd seen plenty of prairie whirlwinds-but, this thing didn't move: it remained in one spot, spinning its way upward. I watched it for perhaps a half-hour-until my curiosity got the better of me. Then I began investigating."

A couple of days later, he returned to the cave with some crude tools and a kerosene lantern. He cut sticks of wood from nearby shrubs and built a rope ladder in order to descend into the mouth of the cave. When White ran out of rope as he stood on a ledge, he lit his lantern and could see a tunnel off to his right about 20 feet down. Holding onto the wall, he descended to a level surface into a huge chamber. He now saw another tunnel off to his left.

He explored the tunnel to the left first, finding the bat cave. Returning to the large room, he headed for the tunnel to the right where he saw a wonderland. Enormous stalagmites rose from the floor, clusters of stalactites in a variety of colors hung from above and onyx-lined pools full of pure water sparkled brilliantly on the floor. Jim White would return again and again, often staying as long as three days within the caves.

Eager to share his discovery, White relayed his stories to the cowboys who laughed at him in disbelief. One who did believe White was a 15-year-old Mexican boy who began accompanying White in his explorations. All that White and "the Kid," whose real name the cowboys did not know, took with them were crude handmade lanterns, rope, a canteen of oil, and food and water. They wore overcoats to combat the steady 56-degree temperature and high humidity. In his book, White wrote, "It occurred to me that since I was unable to interest an individual in further development and presentation, perhaps I could get the government to do something." In October 1923, President Calvin Coolidge declared Carlsbad Caverns a national monument, and Jim White became cavern guide. When the federal government took over the caverns, it was agreed White would be named chief explorer. However, no such position existed on park service lists, so it was up to the government to create the position. A position that was denied to White. Though they did allow him to sell his story for 75 cents a booklet in the Caverns. The Whites lived in a bungalow built for them at the caverns while he was chief guide. He resigned from that position in 1929.

White again applied for the job of chief explorer, and with that application he included a petition signed by many, including New Mexico Governor R. C. Dillon and prominent people of El Paso in the El Paso Times on September 28, 1929,  the editor encouraged the director of national parks to "liberate Mr. White from the routine of guiding and permit him to devote his time and strength to the job for which, ...he is best fitted -- exploring the still unknown depths and recesses of that mighty underworld." It fell on deaf ears as White did not get the job.

In 1930, Carlsbad Caverns became a national park. up in 1937,  Jim White died on  April 26, 1946. Now the Caverns that no one wanted to believe him about is a historical monument and White still has not received the recognition he deserves today. Yet the bats continue to swarm in and out of the Caverns that many of visitors now have the chance to see because of one man, who when a young lad took the chance and explored the unknown, James Larkin White.