Cimarron Canyon

The canyon road beyond this marker is where the Colfax County War turned to killing. The Reverend Franklin J. Tolby, who preached against the Maxwell Land Grant company and the Santa Fe Ring men behind it, was ambushed and killed on the road between Elizabethtown and Cimarron on September 14, 1875. Suspicion fell on Cruz Vega, whom a Cimarron mob lynched while he insisted they had the wrong man. The panel itself keeps to the ground: the plains end here, against the Cimarron Range at the eastern edge of the Sangre de Cristos.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Cimarron Canyon You are now at the Great Plains- Rocky Mountain boundary. The Cimarron Range, one of the east- ernmost ranges of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in this part of New Mexico. Elevation 6,800 feet.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. James Hotel — 4.3 mi
  Henri Lambert's 1872 inn and saloon on the Santa Fe Trail at Cimarron, a stage for the Colfax County War, where the old saloon ceiling still shows 22 bullet holes.

More markers nearby

• Santa Fe Trail — 4.2 mi
• Black Jack's Hideout / Colfax County War — 4.2 mi
• Eagle Nest Lake State Park — 14 mi
• Elizabethtown — 15 mi