These books capture the derring-do, hardship and wonder of living on this patch in New Mexico prior to its more populous settlement. There is lovely detail in them–a prospector’s pet bear cub. Reading a newspaper in the wilderness in the light of a full moon. A girl playing cards all night with possible cattle thieves, to deter them from stealing her family’s cows. A boy emerging from cow camp with body lice. My favorite is a description of such a huge herd of antelope on the San Augustin Plain the llano seemed covered by moving sands.
The Ben Lilly Legend. J. Frank Dobie. The story of the legendary Ben Lilly, Gila Wilderness hound man and hunter. (non-fiction) University of Texas Press.
Black Range Tales. James A. McKenna. McKenna’s accounts of early prospecting and Indian raids in the Gila Country are a valuable resource. (non-fiction) High-Lonesome Press.
Cowboy Spur Maker: The Story of Ed Blanchard. The life of Magdalena spur maker Ed Blanchard is brought to light. (non-fiction) Texas A&M Press.
Cow Dust and Saddle Leather. Ben Kemp with J. C. Dykes. (non-fiction) University of Oklahoma Press. Out of print. Kemp’s recollection of early Gila settlement.
Fifty Years on the Old Frontier: As Cowboy, Hunter Guide, and Scout, and Ranchman. James Henry Cook. (non-fiction) University of Oklahoma Press.
Growing Up Cowboy: Confessions of a Luna Kid. Ralph Reynolds. An older man looks back to his years cowboying when he was a kid in Luna, New Mexico. (non-fiction) Fulcrum Publishing.
Heartland New Mexico: Photos from the Farm Service Administration 1935-1943. Nancy Wood. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Pres. Russell Lee Depression photographs taken in New Mexico.
Hunting Grizzlys, Black Bear and Lions, ‘Big Time” on the Old Ranches. Will F. Evans. Stories of old time hunting in West Texas during the 1890s and southwest New Mexico in the 1920s. (non-fiction) High-Lonesome Press.
Meet Mr. Grizzly: A Saga on the Passing of the Grizzly Bear. Montague Stevens. Catron County’s own “remittance” man: Stevens’ writing about grizzly hounds, training hounds, and ranching can’t be beat. (Non-fiction) High Lonesome Press.
Mogollon Mountain Man: Nat Straw, Grizzly Hunter and Trapper. Carolyn O’Bagy Davis. The life of Nat Straw that overlooked and unsung prospector and bear hunter, a contemporary of Ben Lilly, who made the Mogollons his home. (non-fiction) Sanpete Publications.
No Life for a Lady. Agnes Morley Cleveland. Mrs. Cleveland’s autobiographical work about growing up on a cattle ranch near Datil. (non-fiction) University of Nebraska Press.
Old Magdalena Cow Town. Langford Ryan Johnston. “A glimpse into the romantic life of the typical southwestern cowboys” during the first half of the twentieth century. (non-fiction) Bandar Logs, Inc.
Pie Town Woman: The Hard Life and Good Times of a New Mexico Homesteader. Joan Meyers. The story of Doris Caudill, who came to Pie Town in 1929, married in 1933, homesteaded there, and in 1940 was photographed by Farm Security Administration photographer Russell Lee in 1940. (non-fiction) University of New Mexico Press.
Recollections of a Western Ranchman. Captain William French. One of the area’s classics of cattle ranching lore, Indian raids, the Elfego Baca gunfight, and Butch Cassidy’s days at the WS Ranch, just north of Alma, NM. (non-fiction) High-Lonesome Press.
The Sea of Grass. Conrad Richter. The wonderful saga of a cattle baron and his family, set on the San Augustine Plain when cattle was king. (fiction) Knopf, out of print.
Slash Ranch Hounds. Dub Evans. “Mr. Dub’s” tales of the hunting and hounds at the celebrated Slash Ranch. High-Lonesome Press. (reprint of a formerly scarce title)
Tales from the Bloated Goat: Early Days in the Mogollons. H. A. Hoover. Hoover’s reminiscences about life in Mogollon begin with his diary entries in 1904. (non-fiction) High-Lonesome Press.
Triumph and Tragedy: A History of Thomas Lyons and the LCs. Ida Foster Campbell & Alice Foster Hill. The history of the Lyons-Campbell cattle empire that controlled 1.5 million acres of range and grazed some 60,000 head of cattle, largely in Grant County. (non-fiction) High-Lonesome Press.
Not to be overlooked as solid reference books:
New Mexico Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. E. M. Pearce. As the title suggest, a compendium of New Mexico place names. University of New Mexico Press (out of print and scarce or rare at this point).
The Place Names of New Mexico. Robert Julyan. An updated compendium of New Mexico place names, published in the 1990s. University of New Mexico Press.
Great Cruelties Have Been Reported: The 1544 Investigation of the Coronado Expedition. Richard Flint. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Came the Men on Horses: The Conquistador Expeditions of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and Don Juan de Oñate. Stan Hoig. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.