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1953 Map of Trampas

Name: 1953 Topographic Map of Trampas
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1955
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1955

About this map

Kit Carson Highway tracks the course of the Rio Grande through the Cañon del Rio Grande, marking a rugged corridor of northern New Mexico settlement. The landscape is defined by traditional Spanish land grants, including the Sebastian Martin Grant and the Las Trampas Grant, which dictate the rural organization of this high-altitude terrain. Small agricultural communities like Dixon, Apodaca, and Canoncito are clustered along the Rio de Peñasco, while the village of Trampas sits to the southeast near the Iglesia de Santo Tomas and the Escuela de Abajo.

Mineral extraction is prominent across the foothills, with several sites noted as inactive by the mid-1950s. Industrial history is etched into the earth at the Harding Mine, The Tungsten Mine, and the Champion Mine, located near Copper Hill. These features, alongside the numerous named cañadas like Cañada del Barro and Cañada del Plomo, reveal a region shaped by both hard-rock mining and mountain hydrology.