Nature's Ways Include Thunder of Rockslide
Dear Ann Carroll:A few years ago, the late Hugh McMillan, El Paso contractor, and I on a fair Sunday afternoon would go to the little Helms private cemetery on the east toe of Alto Mountain to chop weeds and brush away from the headstones in the Helms cemetery. McMillan and I were strong friends of the Helms family and John Helms in particular.
Alto Mountain is the round top mountain looming above the Hueco Range about 30 miles east of El Paso.
In 1915, we were digging the runaround relief ditch to No. 1 dirt tank. It was June. We were going as fast as we could because the rainy season was coming up fast. The runaround is a very important part of a dirt tank - the safety valve.
At 2 p.m., on a cloudless day, suddenly there was a deep thunder-like roar that lasted for minutes. Then a heavy dust cloud obcured Alto Mountain. We were eight miles from the mountain and we stopped, fully execting a volcano to erupt on Alto.
Mr. Helms and John Franklin saddled horses and loped off to see what had happened. The dust cloud slowly cleared and the rest of us went back to work. In a few hours, they were back and, as Mr. Helms put it, nature has a strange way of doing the impossible. What we saw was a big landslide off a round mountain. It had no reason at all for sliding. But that slide started up near the top and thousands of tons of rock and debris with boulders bigger than a house came roaring down. It covered the road in 30 or 40 feet of muck. Any man or beast that was on that road was buried forever.
Mr. Helm took a four up, fresno and plough and built a new road around the slide. We forgot about the day it happened.
Hugh listened to my story and at last he said: "I was right there in Van Horn at the time and I never heard of that slide. Can you show it to me now?"
I said: "You bet. The new road is clearly distinct and the old road is still in evidence, if you look for them. The boulders will be there from now on."
A mile or two beyond the Helms cemetery we slowed down and finally found the old road. It is just a trace now. There it was there were the rubble and the boulers of the landslide.
Hugh looked at the rubble and said: "All these years, I have passd this slide and never paid attention. With no communication in those years, I guess it did happen. Who in the world could believe it if they were not told about it?"
And so we puzzled ways of nature as we chopped weeds in the cemetery.
~A. Downs, Alamogordo.
El Paso Herald-Post, El Paso, Texas, Friday, March 18, 1977