Along with its rugged beauty, the Guadalupe Mountains long provided valuable natural resources to native cultures and to 19th and early 20th century settlers. The Salt Flats, a mineral flat left behind by a shallow lake that existed nearly 2 million years ago during the Pleistocene Epoch, was a ready source of salt.
Salt Flat and the Western Escarpment, Guadalupe Mountains National Park / Rebecca Latson
The salts were transported by streams flowing out of the mountains and into a shallow basin known as a graben – a downward-displaced block of crust in between upward-thrusting fault blocks. The shallow basin filled with water from streams and, during the Pleistocene Epoch, plentiful rainfall. Ultimately, the lake dried up, leaving behind the salt deposits that became a significant resource to people within the El Paso area and the cause of the El Paso Salt War.
Salt was a sacred and precious resource to native Apache and Tigua peoples. And it also was sought out by newcomers to the region. In 1692 an Apache prisoner led Diego de Vargas and a small company of Spanish soldiers to the Guadalupe Mountains and these salt beds. That was the beginning of nearly 150 years of dependency on the salt by Spanish, Mexican, and early white settlers in the region.
After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, many Mexicans chose to stay in El Paso and relied on salt to supplement their incomes from farming, running the risk of attack by Apache Indians.
Until the mid-1800s, these unclaimed lands were available to those who made the trip there. But in the late 1860s three businessmen -- W.W. Mills, Albert J. Fountain, and Louis Cardis -- attempted to monopolize the salt flats and charge a fee on salt collection.
Mexicans were outraged since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo stated the salt beds were considered to be public property. In 1877, riots erupted over the dispute. They were spurred by Charles Howard, a lawyer brought in to help Cardis and Mills control the salt beds.
On December 17, 1877, Howard, his agent John E. McBride, and John G. Atkinson, were fired on by Mexicans, further inciting the El Paso Salt War. Military troops and vigilantes responded, leading to the killing and wounding of many people. In the end, Mexicans were robbed, assaulted, murdered, and ultimately charged to collect salt.
This short, brutal warfare revealed the economic and political struggles to come to the area, and nearly jeopardized the peace after the Mexican-American War.
