Call for Information

Phase I cultural resources investigations of the Mountweazel Chemical Depot (MCD), Loteria Township, New Mexico were conducted by Thunder Creek Cultural Resources Consulting (TCCRC) in 2012. This Government Owned/Contractor Operated (GOCO) facility was recently closed under the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012 under the recommendation of the Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC). This action required a full cultural resources inventory be completed for compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (as amended through 2004), the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation’s implementing regulations (36 CFR Part 800), and Department of Defense Directive 4710.1. TCCRC (Akron, Ohio) was contracted to complete the investigations by the El Paso District of the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE-EP), through the facility’s operator, GloboMax, Inc. (Alexandria, Virginia).

As common with many large federal undertakings regulated under Section 106, the original Scope of Work (SOW) provided by USACE-EP (2012) included stipulation that a public outreach effort be developed in conjunction with the survey and inventory. The ultimate form of this outreach would be determined by the Principal Investigator in conjunction with the advice and consent of the regulatory agencies including planning goals of the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO).

Principal survey and cultural resource inventory of MCD were completed by TCCRC on December 21, 2012, concurrent with the demolition of the facilities. Unfortunately, following our field efforts, several accidents have resulted in severe data attrition and/or loss. Mishaps include initiation of controlled burning of mesquite stands in Section 54 while technicians were still in field delineating archaeological sites. This resulted in complete loss of two crew vehicles, including notes, maps, artifacts and equipment, as well as a rapid and disorderly dispersal of the crew, largely temporary ad hoc hires (aka, “shovelbums,” in parlance). In addition, TCCRC’s temporary field office in Roswell Junction was concurrently inundated in a flash flood.

The purposes of this website, therefore, are two-fold.

1.  To meet, in part, the obligations of the SOW, by posting archaeological and historical data from the MCD survey as it becomes available, and,
2. To solicit additional supplemental material in the form of any documents, notes, photographs, etc. about MCD.

MCD, principally constructed in 1947, was a sprawling, approximately 30K-acre installation in extreme southern New Mexico. Phase I cultural resources survey of MCD resulted in documentation of 54 previously unknown (Field Sites [FS] 1-54) cultural resources.  As a whole, these 54 resources represent the cultural history of the Southwestern Closed basin of New Mexico from the Clovis Period over 12, 000 years ago through the present day, and beyond.

In order to complete to cultural investigations on the timeline allotted by USACE-EP in conjunction with the security and safety constraints of GloboMax, TCCRC employed a large temporary staff, working through the Roswell Junction office. Archaeologists and historians in the field, laboratory, and office worked simultaneously to compile a substantial technical volume on the research and survey findings as the field work progressed.

Although much of this work is now lost, a technical report is required to fulfill the obligations of the task order. I am attempting to recreate the volume based largely on early emailed drafts and other correspondence and data that was recoverable on-line. This deliverable, of course, is long overdue.

Regardless, if you are local to Loteria Township and have any memories etc. of MCD and/or were involved with the survey, particularly if you are a field technicians who may have maps, notes, photos or artifacts that were inadvertently not returned to TCCRC please contact me through this website.

v/r

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Francis J. Trautman, Principal Investigator

Thunder Creek Cultural Resources Consulting, Inc.

Akron, Ohio

January 1, 2017