Southern New Mexico - American Southwest - page 337

WHAT TO SEE & DO IN & AROUND DEMING
Deming Luna Mimbres Museum Deming was the meeting place of the second
east-west railroad to connect the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and that heritage is recalled
in this museum, run by the Luna County Historical Society. It has a military room that
contains exhibits from the Indian wars, Pancho Villa's raid, WWI and WWII, and the
Korean and Vietnam wars; a room featuring the John and Mary Alice King Collection
of Mimbres pottery; and a doll room with more than 800 dolls. A 5,000-square-foot
adjacent space displays transportation-related exhibits, including a replica of a railroad
depot, a Harvey House, and vintage firetrucks. Across the street is the Custom House, a
turn-of-the-20th-century adobe home that has been turned into a walk-through exhibit.
301 S. Silver Ave., Deming. & 575/546-2382. Fax [phone]. Free admission; donations encouraged.
Mon-Sat 9am-4pm; Sun 1:30-4pm.

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Getting Outside
At Rockhound State Park , 14 miles southeast of Deming via NM 11, visitors are
encouraged to pick up and take home with them as much as 15 pounds of minerals—
jasper, agate, quartz crystal, flow-banded rhyolite, and others. At the base of the Little
Florida Mountains, the park is a lovely, arid, cactus-covered land with paths leading
down into dry gullies and canyons. (You may have to walk a bit, as the more accessible
minerals have been largely picked out.)
The campground ($10 for nonelectric hookup; $14 with electric hookup), which has
shelters, restrooms, and showers, offers a distant view of mountain ranges all the way to
the U.S.-Mexico border. The park also has one marked hiking trail and a playground.
Admission is $5 per vehicle, and the park is open year-round from dawn to dusk. For
more information, call & 575/546-6182.
Some 35 miles south of Deming is the tiny border town of Columbus, which looks
across at Mexico. The Pancho Villa State Park here marks the last foreign invasion of
American soil. A temporary fort, where a tiny garrison was housed in tents, was attacked
in 1916 by 600 Mexican revolutionaries, who cut through the boundary fence at Colum-
bus. Eighteen Americans were killed, 12 wounded; an estimated 200 Mexicans died. The
Mexicans immediately retreated across their border. An American punitive expedition,
headed by Gen. John J. Pershing, was launched into Mexico but got nowhere. Villa
restricted his banditry to Mexico after that, and was assassinated in 1923.
The state park includes ruins of the old fort and a new visitor center and 7,000-square-
foot museum offering exhibits and a film. The park also has a strikingly beautiful desert
botanical garden (worth the trip alone), plus campsites, restrooms, showers, an RV dump
station, and a playground. There's a $5-per-vehicle entrance fee; the park is staffed from
8am to 5pm daily. For more information, call & 575/531-2711.
Across the street from the state park is the old Southern Pacific Railroad Depot, which
has been restored by the Columbus Historical Society and now houses the Columbus
Historical Museum ( & 575/531-2620 ), which contains railroad memorabilia and
exhibits on local history. Call for hours, which vary.
If you'd like to stay in Columbus, call Martha's Place Bed & Breakfast, Main and
Lima streets ( & 575/531-2467 ). It's a two-story stucco Pueblo-style adobe painted
cream and green, with Victorian touches inside. The medium-size rooms have comfort-
able beds and French doors leading to a balcony. Prices are $70 double. Rates include
breakfast. Pets are welcome.

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