In the course of the hundreds of Rio Chama rafting trips that we've logged during the last 30 years, none of us has ever had a bad trip. Such is the magic of the Rio Chama. No matter the weather, the water level, the season, the crowded Big Eddy boat ramp on a blistering Sunday afternoon, or even the coffee forgotten at home, the Rio Chama remains "The People's River." Its stunning beauty, plus its exceptional camping, user-friendly whitewater, and mostly predictable flows, combine to create one of the Southwest's premiere, multi-day, river running experiences.The spectacular, towering canyon walls of the Wild & Scenic section through the remote Chama River Canyon Wilderness is New Mexico's own "Grand Canyon." The geology of the Rio Chama is so exceptional that this river is ideally suited for a river guide with a geological theme. And so, following the release of the Rio Grande geologic river guide in 2011, we turned our (part-time) attention to the Rio Chama. Although most Rio Chama recreation is focused on the El Vado to Big Eddy stretch, thedecision was easily made to include the entire boatable section, from the highlands in Colorado to the confluence with the Rio Grande, as each section of the river displays its own visual spectacles and assortment of adventures. Plus, the geology is magnificent and diverse along the entire length of the river.

The Rio Grande was ancient long before the first humans reached its banks. These days, the highly regulated river looks nothing like it did to those early settlers. Alternately viewed as a valuable ecosystem and life-sustaining foundation of community welfare or a commodity to be engineered to yield maximum economic benefit, the Rio Grande has brought many advantages to those who live in its valley, but the benefits have come at a price. This study examines human interactions with the Rio Grande from prehistoric time to the present day and explores what possibilities remain for the desert river. From the perspectives of law, development, tradition, and geology, the authors weigh what has been gained and lost by reining in the Rio Grande.

2020, Texas Historical Commission's Governor's Award for Historic Preservation was awarded to the Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools (CHAPS) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. This book grew out of the CHAPS program. Runner-up, 2019 Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Book Award, sponsored by the Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association (TOMFRA) Long known as a place of cross-border intrigue, the Rio Grande’s unique role in the history of the American Civil War has been largely forgotten or overlooked. Few know of the dramatic events that took place here or the complex history of ethnic tensions and international intrigue and the clash of colorful characters that marked the unfolding and aftermath of the Civil War in the Lone Star State. To understand the American Civil War in Texas also requires an understanding of the history of Mexico. The Civil War on the Rio Grande focuses on the region’s forced annexation from Mexico in 1848 through the Civil War and Reconstruction. In a very real sense, the Lower Rio Grande Valley was a microcosm not only of the United States but also of increasing globalization as revealed by the intersections of races, cultures, economic forces, historical dynamics, and individual destinies. As a companion to Blue and Gray on the Border: The Rio Grande Valley Civil War Trail, this volume provides the scholarly backbone to a larger public history project exploring three decades of ethnic conflict, shifting international alliances, and competing economic proxies at the border. The Civil War on the Rio Grande, 1846–1876 makes a groundbreaking contribution not only to the history of a Texas region in transition but also to the larger history of a nation at war with itself.

Recovers the history of a significant regional revolt against the Mexican Republic, presaging other federalist rebellions and the Mexican-American War.

The Pulitzer Prize– and Bancroft Prize–winning epic history of the American Southwest from the acclaimed twentieth-century author of Lamy of Santa Fe. Great River was hailed as a literary masterpiece and enduring classic when it first appeared in 1954. It is an epic history of four civilizations—Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American—that people the Southwest through ten centuries. With the skill of a novelist, the veracity of a scholar, and the love of a long-time resident, Paul Horgan describes the Rio Grande, its role in human history, and the overlapping cultures that have grown up alongside it or entered into conflict over the land it traverses. Now in its fourth revised edition, Great River remains a monumental part of American historical writing. “Here is known and unknown history, emotion and color, sense and sensitivity, battles for land and the soul of man, cultures and moods, fused by a glowing pen and a scholarly mind into a cohesive and memorable whole.” —The Boston Sunday Herald “Transcends regional history and soars far above the river valley with which it deals . . . a survey, rich in color and fascinating in pictorial detail, of four civilizations: the aboriginal Indian, the Spanish, the Mexican, and the Anglo-American . . . It is, in the best sense of the word, literature. It has architectural plan, scholarly accuracy, stylistic distinction, and not infrequently real nobility of spirit.” —Allan Nevins, author of Ordeal of the Union “One of the major masterpieces of American historical writing.” —Carl Carmer, author of Stars Fell on Alabama

Photographer Adriel Heisey has captured the spirit of the Rio Grande with his awe-inspiring aerial images of the river. Heisey follows the waterway from its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado, through New Mexico, then as it straddles and defines the TexasMexico border and finally culminates with its outpouring into the Gulf of Mexico. Heiseys images bring to life the unmistakable signature of water that the Rio Grande represents in the arid southwestern landscape.

A Guide to the Rocks, Landscape, Geologic History, and Settlers of the Area of Big Bend National Park.

Is her compassion doing more harm than good? Recently widowed Susanna Jenkins has decided to follow her family to the booming town of San Marcial, New Mexico, for a fresh start and to aid in her family's sudden change in fortune. They are tasked with managing her uncle's new Grand Hotel, and it takes all her patience to try to help her parents see the good of their circumstances and relinquish their sense of entitlement. She's hopeful when her brother becomes determined to get a job and make his own way, and she feels drawn to his kind boss, Owen Turner, who works as a boilermaker for the Santa Fe's train shops in town. But the hard work only seems to fuel her brother's anger, and his rough new friends give her pause. When misguided choices put Susanna's family in an even more precarious situation, she worries her help has only made things worse. Leaving her family to fend for themselves seems like the best option, but how can she walk away from the true friendships--and love--that she's found?

Winner, Jim Parish Award for Documentation and Publication of Local and Regional History, Webb County Heritage Foundation, 2015 Present-day smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border is a professional, often violent, criminal activity. However, it is only the latest chapter in a history of illicit business dealings that stretches back to 1848, when attempts by Mexico and the United States to tax commerce across the Rio Grande upset local trade and caused popular resentment. Rather than acquiesce to what they regarded as arbitrary trade regulations, borderlanders continued to cross goods and accepted many forms of smuggling as just. In Border Contraband, George T. Díaz provides the first history of the common, yet little studied, practice of smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border. In Part I, he examines the period between 1848 and 1910, when the United States' and Mexico's trade concerns focused on tariff collection and on borderlanders' attempts to avoid paying tariffs by smuggling. Part II begins with the onset of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, when national customs and other security forces on the border shifted their emphasis to the interdiction of prohibited items (particularly guns and drugs) that threatened the state. Díaz's pioneering research explains how greater restrictions have transformed smuggling from a low-level mundane activity, widely accepted and still routinely practiced, into a highly profitable professional criminal enterprise.