Salt War

The quarrel over the salt began with Republicans in the late 1860s. W. W. Mills, Albert J. Fountain and Louis Cardis each tried to get title to the deposits at the foot of Guadalupe Peak. Fountain won a state senate seat in 1869 promising to secure them for El Paso's people, but Cardis and Father Antonio Borrajo of San Elizario turned feeling against him. Judge Gaylord Judd Clarke was killed on December 7, 1870, and Fountain left for New Mexico.

What the plaque says

Salt War Resentment, over private control of the salt lakes in the region often called Guadalupe Lakes; in 1877 led to the El Paso Salt War which entailed the loss of many lives and much property. 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Elizario Historic District — steps away
  A plaza of adobe buildings at the end of the El Paso Mission Trail: an 1877 chapel, Gregorio Garcia's portaled house and the old county jail of Billy the Kid legend.
• Socorro Mission (Nuestra Senora de la Limpia Concepcion del Socorro) — 5.4 mi
  Socorro's adobe church on the El Paso Mission Trail, with walls five feet thick, carved vigas from an older church and a statue of Saint Michael said to have chosen the town.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 7.3 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 8.0 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.

More markers nearby

• San Elizario — steps away
• San Elizario — steps away
• The Camino Real — steps away
• Juan de Onate Expedition - 1598 — steps away