Jornada del Muerto (1)

Doña Ana County · I-25 -- mile marker 23 -- southbound rest area · location approximate

This stretch of the Camino Real leaves the Rio Grande and cuts across 90 miles of desert with little water or shelter. Despite the challenges it presented, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo travelers between El Paso and the settlements in northern New Mexico heavily used the dreaded “Deadman's Journey.” On horseback, travelers could cross the Jornada in a few days, but people on foot accompanying ox-drawn carts or wagons could spend a week in transit.

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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Marker data: Official Scenic Historic Markers program, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, Department of Cultural AffairsMarker texts come from the Division’s published marker spreadsheet, reproduced with the Division’s written permission. Where that spreadsheet records a coordinate, the pin is the Division’s own; where it records only a highway and mile marker, an address, a junction or a named place, or where its coordinate contradicts its own highway, mile and county, the pin is ours, resolved on public road and place data and marked approximate.

Jornada del Muerto (1)

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