1966 Map of Coyote Hill

About this map

The United States Mexico border defines the southern edge of this landscape, where the flat desert floor meets the rising slopes of Coyote Hill. This area, surveyed in the mid-1960s, reveals a terrain largely shaped by transport and resource extraction. An Old Railroad Grade cuts across the center of the sheet, tracing a path that once connected this remote corner of New Mexico to wider markets. Industrial activity is visible in the form of Borrow Pits and a Gravel Pit, suggesting the ongoing maintenance of local infrastructure or the railway line itself. Near the eastern foothills, the settlement of Arena sits at the base of the mountain, marking a small point of human activity in an otherwise sparse borderlands environment. The map effectively documents the transition from the international boundary line into the elevated topography of the high desert.