Historical Marker
Reserve
Reserve, Catron County · New Mexico
In 1884 Anglo cowboys from the Texas cattle outfits were terrorizing the Hispanic families of the San Francisco plazas, and nineteen-year-old Elfego Baca rode in from Socorro with a deputy's badge. He arrested a drunken cowboy, and when a mob gathered he barricaded himself in a jacal, a hut of mud and pickets, and held it for about thirty-three hours while the cowboys fired, by the usual count, some four thousand rounds into it. He walked out unhurt. Accounts disagree on the mob's size and the dead. James Muir's bronze of Baca stands in town.
What the plaque says
Official Scenic Historic Marker Reserve Population 600 - Elevation 5765 ft. Located in the San Francisco Valley, Reserve was named upper San Francisco Plaza by its original Hispanic settlers in 1874. The name was later changed to Reserve in recognition of the U.S. Forest Service headquarters located here. Apaches made frequent attacks on the community, which lay within Apache hunting lands.
Where it stands
33.71389, -108.75976 · Directions