Three Rivers

The three are Indian Creek, Golondrina Creek, named for the swallow, and Three Rivers itself, which meet near the old village. The panel's three cattle empires were really one stretch of water passing hands. John Chisum's herds ran here; Susan McSween Barber built her own herd on the place and sold out in 1902; and Albert Bacon Fall bought the Tres Ritos ranch in 1906. In 1921 he took money from the oilman Edward Doheny to buy the neighboring land that controlled its water, and that money became the scandal that ended his career.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Three Rivers Located in the Tularosa Basin at the turn-off for Three Rivers Petroglyphs, this ranching vil- lage settled in the early 1870's took its name for a nearby convergence of three creeks. The cat- tle empires of Albert Bacon Fall, John Chisum and Susan McSween, kept the small town going, and the arrival of Charles Eddy's El Paso and Northeastern Railway in 1899 spurred growth. But most residents had to move when Fall took majority control of local water rights. Fall's million-acre empire crumbled after his convic- tion in the "Teapot Dome" scandal.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Three Rivers Petroglyph Site — 4.9 mi
  More than 21,000 petroglyphs on a basalt ridge above the Tularosa Basin, one of the few places in the Southwest set aside for its rock art alone, walked on a rough half-mile trail.
• Trinity Site — 34 mi
  Where the first atomic bomb was exploded on July 16, 1945, open one day a year, and remembered by its neighbors as the start of decades of illness the government took eighty years to acknowledge.

More markers nearby

• Three Rivers Petroglyph Site — steps away
• Round Mountain — 16 mi
• Blazer's Mill — 18 mi
• Tularosa — 19 mi