Jornada del Muerto (2)

Sierra County · NM Highway 51 -- mile marker 15 · location approximate

(SIDE 1) This section of the Camino Real is called the Jornada del Muerto or Deadman's Journey after the tragic fate of German trader Bernardo Gruber, El Alemán. In 1670 the Inquisition accused him of witchcraft. He escaped and attempted to cross ninety miles of forbidding desert south of Socorro, between the Paraje de Fray Cristóbal to the north and the Paraje de Robledo to the south. (SIDE 2) After days of unquenched thirst, Gruber's Apache servant Antonio went in search of water. When he returned, El Alemán was gone. Weeks later, travelers found his clothing and his scattered remains. Spanish and Mexican merchants, the U.S. Army, the Texas Confederates in 1862, and the railroad in the 1880s also used this route.

The Historic Preservation Division notes that its marker spreadsheet may be out of date and in places inaccurate, and that it does not know where every marker now stands. These pages carry the spreadsheet’s record; a marker listed here may have moved or may no longer stand. the program’s page ↗

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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.

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