Organ, New mexico


"The mining camp of Organ (elevation 5,084 feet) was not officially established as a community until 1883 although there had been mining activity since the late 1840s. President Chester A. Arthur granted the 40-acre parcel of land under congressional approval through a federal land grant to the Organ Mining Corporation in 1883. Actual mining in the Organ townsite was prohibited. The town's greatest population was around eighteen hundred at the turn of the century. At that time, Organ had seven saloons, a Catholic church, a two-teacher schoolhouse, two smelters, two general stores and a tunnel jail that was originally a powder magazine. New Organ is a modern day community on U.S. 70 with many of its residents presently employed at the White Sands Missile Base."

"Today, numbering about 100 households, Organ is under the direct jurisdiction of Doña Ana County and the County Probate Judge as directed in the presidential order of 1883, because it was never incorporated. The state government recognizes Organ as an independent community under New Mexico State House Bill 523 of the 44th State Legislature in 1999, which recognized "Traditional Historic Communities." For this reason, Organ cannot be annexed by any municipality according to the provisions directed under this house bill."

"The Organ Community Center was improved in 2008 and is still located on land of the original town square. The roads are paved and improvements are still ongoing through the supervision of Dona Ana County. The Organ Post Office is in full operation and Organ still has a few businesses. The cemetery remains in use and is called the "Slumbering Mountain Cemetery" with newer and historic graves."


Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Civil War in the Organ area

The Confederacy in 1861


Retreat from Fort Fillmore (Text from the Branigan Cultural Center)
"On July 25, 1861, Confederate Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor and 250 Texas Volunteers marched into Mesilla. Union troops, stationed in nearby Fort Fillmore, engaged Baylor but were unable to oust the Confederate troops. Defeated, the Union soldiers retreated back to the fort. That night, Major Isaac Lynde ordered the fort's supplies and equipment destroyed to keep them from Confederate hands. At daybreak, Lynde's troops along with 100 women and children began a retreat to Fort Stanton, a hundred miles to the northeast of Fort Fillmore. About noon, Baylor's men caught up with them at San Augustin Springs, where Major Lynde surrendered."



Pvt Jefferson Haley Ake, Rapp's Co, 4th TX Cav, died in 1935, buried at Organ's Slumbering Mountain Cemetery.

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