Judge J.C. Hunter and Early Park Plans

The occasion of the motorcade in 1927 was not the first time West Texans had considered the advantages of a road to connect El Paso and Carlsbad. In 1925, McKittrick Canyon, located partly in Texas and partly in New Mexico, in the southern Guadalupe Mountains, had attracted the attention of some Texans who wanted to create a state park there. The park plan was part of a larger effort to get a road built between Carlsbad and El Paso.

J. C. Hunter was a prime mover in the group boosting the park and highway. In 1924 he had visited the inaccessible but spectacular canyon for the first time. Hunter was from Van Horn, Texas, a ranching community approximately halfway between Carlsbad and El Paso, and 65 miles south of the southern end of the Guadalupe range. As judge for Culberson County, Hunter was an influential and respected man in West Texas. He also was an oilman with a substantial income. After seeing McKittrick Canyon, Hunter began working with others who were also interested in establishing a park there.

In the spring of 1925, a group of about 100 persons, including the highway commissioners of both Texas and New Mexico, Governor Pat Neff of Texas, and members of the newly created Texas State Parks Board visited Carlsbad Cave and McKittrick Canyon. Considerable enthusiasm existed for the park project. After the highway commissioners agreed to build the road, Hunter purchased a section of land in the canyon, intending to donate it as part of the 6,000 to 8,000 acres that the group had pledged to help create a Texas state park. Hunter also secured a promise from the State Banking Department, which owned some of the land at the mouth of the canyon, that the land would not be sold.

In September 1925, National Geographic carried a long article about the new discoveries their explorers were making at Carlsbad Caverns. Wilis T. Lee, leader of the exploration group and author of the article, apparently had been impressed by the dynamism and positive action of the Texas state park group. A portion of the article described a new Texas state park in the southern Guadalupes that had been established as a result of the Society's activities at Carlsbad Cave. Photographs of El Capitan and a canyon scene accompanied the article.

In spite of initial enthusiasm, the idea of a park in McKittrick Canyon did not go beyond Hunter's initial one-section purchase. The State Banking Department reneged on its promise and sold the land at the mouth of the canyon. Disappointed, Hunter gave up the idea of a park, but continued to acquire land in the southern Guadalupe Mountains. Around 1928 he sold all of the land he had acquired to a corporation he had formed with M. McAlpine and Thomas and Matt Grisham. The corporation, headquartered in Abilene, Texas, engaged in oil and gas exploration. By 1934 the Grisham-Hunter Corporation had acquired ownership or control of 43,200 acres between the New Mexico-Texas boundary and El Capitan.

Early in 1928, Stephen T. Mather, Director of the National Park Service, visited New Mexico and expressed his belief that either the Frijole Canyon area near Santa Fe (later to become Bandelier National Monument) or Carlsbad Cave could be considered logical locations for a national park. The Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce immediately went to work lobbying for the cave and suggested that sections of the Guadalupe Mountains, including Guadalupe Peak and El Capitan, should also be a part of the park.

Although Judge Hunter had given up the idea of a park in McKittrick Canyon, his Grisham-Hunter Corporation remained a strong supporter of tourism in West Texas and southern New Mexico and an advocate for the El Paso to Carlsbad highway. As an expression of that support, in August 1928 the corporation hosted a 24-hour picnic in McKittrick Canyon, attended by some 500 persons, including members of the West Texas Chamber of Commerce, the governors of Texas and New Mexico, Texas Highway Commissioner R.S. Sterling, and a contingent of the Army from Ft. Bliss, which took care of the housekeeping details for the large party. Among the speakers at the festivities, Highway Commissioner Sterling spoke about the park potentials of the Guadalupes, calling it the "recreation center of Texas." He recommended that the state acquire the land in McKittrick Canyon for a park and asserted that then there would be no problem with building a road to it.

Not long after the big picnic in McKittrick Canyon, J. Stokely Ligon, a biologist for the U.S. Biological Survey who had recently spent two years doing a wildlife survey of the Guadalupes for the State of New Mexico, expressed his ideas about providing public access to the Guadalupes. He envisioned a scenic loop drive touching El Paso on the west, El Capitan at the south, Roswell on the east, and White Sands National Monument on the north. Ligon suggested that many organizations and government agencies would have to cooperate to advertise the loop route and to help visitors understand its features. He emphasized, however, that while roads should be built to the canyons in the Guadalupes, the canyons themselves should only be accessible by foot or horseback. Ligon said, "The great trouble with us is that an ease-loving people want to sit in their cars and reach the few spots of natural wild life and then the wild life vanishes."

Although the proposed park in McKittrick Canyon failed to materialize, two highways connecting El Paso and Carlsbad were completed by 1931. The first, the "short line" (later to become U.S. 62) was in use by the summer of 1929. The other highway, U.S. 80, which linked El Paso with Van Horn, was completed in the summer of 1931. Completion of these highways would enhance the credibility of later efforts to establish a park in the southern Guadalupe Mountains of Texas.


Content adapted from Judith K. Fabry's "Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Administrative History," published in 1988.