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1941 Map of Desert

Name: 1941 Topographic Map of Desert
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1961
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1961

About this map

The Southern Pacific railroad slices diagonally across this high-desert basin, providing a vital transportation corridor through the arid Tularosa Valley just north of the state line. In the years before World War II, this landscape was defined by its water sources, where remote outposts like McCracken Ranch and Davis Ranch relied on an extensive network of artificial and natural catchments such as Chaparral Tank and Alvarado Tank No. 2. The small railroad sidings at Desert and Alvarado serve as primary anchors for the region's cattle and rail operations.

Rising above the flats, the geological formations of Three Buttes and Davis Dome provide distinctive navigational landmarks. The map also captures the local infrastructure of the era, from the Hot Well near the southern border to the curiously named School Tank, suggesting the sparse but organized settlement patterns of the New Mexico-Texas borderlands before mid-century changes transformed the region.