Publication Date

5-28-1957

Abstract

The village of Tortugas is located in the Mesilla valley of Doña Ana county, New Mexico, near the Texas and Chihuahua, Mexico boundaries. Three and a half miles north is Las Cruces, the Doña Ana county seat, a city of about thirteen thousand five hundred people. Tortugas is bounded on the north by Mesilla Park and by State College, where the New Mexico College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts is located. El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua lie forty miles to the south. U.S. Highway 65 passes one­quarter mile west of the village. Although originally built on the Rio Grande River, which last flooded and changed its course in this area in 1906, Tortugas is now three and one­half miles from the river. The village is on the Doña Ana Bend Colony Grant (El Ancon de Doña Ana), a Mexican grant of 1839 to Don José Maríe Costales, who founded the village Doña Ana, twelve miles to the north. The altitude is three thousand eight hundred and sixty-three feet. East of the village lie the Organ Mountains, with an altitude of over nine thousand feet.

Keywords

Tortugas, Tiwa-Piro, Isleta, Isleta del Sur, Ethnology

Document Type

Thesis

Language

English

Degree Name

Anthropology

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Anthropology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Stanley Stewart Newman

Second Committee Member

Florence May Hawley

Third Committee Member

Willard Willams Hill

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