Apache Tejo (sometimes 'Tejoe' or 'Teju') was a white settlement and watering stop in the New Mexico Territory, 12 miles southeast of Silver City, 3 miles south of Hurley, and 2 miles east of the Grant County Airport. It is just off U.S. Route 180, about 12 miles west of the mail route crossing of the

Mimbres River The Mimbres is a river in southwestern New Mexico. Course The Mimbres forms from snowpack and runoff on the southwestern slopes of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness in the Black Range at in Grant County. The river ends in the Guzmán Basin, a smal ...

Sweeney, p. 396 and on the old

Santa Rita Santa Rita may refer to: * Rita of Cascia (1381–1457), Catholic saint *Associação Atlética Santa Rita, a Brazilian football (soccer) club *Santa Rita de Cássia FC, an Angolan football (soccer) club Places Belize * Santa Rita, Corozal, a Ma ...

Janos (Chihuahua) Janos is a Municipalities of Chihuahua, municipality in the Mexican state of Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua. It is located in the extreme northwest of Chihuahua, on the border with the state of Sonora and the U.S. states of Arizona & New Mexico. As ...

trail. There was a railroad siding here once. The etymology of the name is unclear. It may have been derived from the name of a Chihenne leader of the 1770s, ''Pachiteju'', but other accounts called it ''Apache de Ho(o)'', which might mean 'Apache water'. The U.S. Army's Fort McLane was established here in 1860, on the bank of a small spring. The commander reported that it had sufficient "water, timber, and grazing" to support the fort. It was originally named ''Fort Floyd'', after Secretary of War

John B. Floyd John Buchanan Floyd (June 1, 1806 – August 26, 1863) was the 31st Governor of Virginia, U.S. Secretary of War, and the Confederate general in the American Civil War who lost the crucial Battle of Fort Donelson. Early family life John Buch ...

. After Floyd joined the

Confederacy Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between ...

, it was renamed to honor a Captain George McLane, who had been killed by

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...

s. It was finally abandoned in 1864.Robert Hixson Julyan, ''The Place Names of New Mexico'', 1996 , p. 135 In the context of the

Apache Wars The Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States Army and various Apache tribal confederations fought in the southwest between 1849 and 1886, though minor hostilities continued until as late as 1924. After the Mexi ...

, the Apache chief

Mangas Coloradas Mangas Coloradas or Mangus-Colorado (La-choy Ko-kun-noste, alias "Red Sleeve"), or Dasoda-hae ("He Just Sits There") (c. 1793 – January 18, 1863) was an Apache tribal chief and a member of the Mimbreño (Tchihende) division of the Centra ...

held a council here with the white settlers in about 1863, where the Apache were promised provisions in return for peace, according to

Geronimo Geronimo ( apm, Goyaałé, , ; June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Ndendahe Apache people. From 1850 to 1886, Geronimo joined with members of three other Central Apache ...

. Mangas Coloradas and his people duly arrived and were "foully murdered after he surrendered". In 1877,

Billy the Kid Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty; September 17 or November 23, 1859July 14, 1881), also known by the pseudonym William H. Bonney, was an outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West, who killed eight men before he was shot and killed at t ...

joined a group of "thieves and rustlers" known as the Boys here.

Owen Wister Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 – July 21, 1938) was an American writer and historian, considered the "father" of western fiction. He is best remembered for writing '' The Virginian'' and a biography of Ulysses S. Grant. Biography Early lif ...

, "father of western fiction", visited the Apache Tejo ranch in 1895. He described it as "a little oasis of hay field, cottonwoods, a spring, and some flowers and grass in front of the adobe house". The foreman of the ranch, Dean Duke, was one of the inspirations for the protagonist of Wister's '' The Virginian''.Paul Green, ''A History of Television's The Virginian, 1962–1971'', 2009 , p. 13 The Apache Tejo Hot Springs, with water issuing at 94 °F, were used as a water source by the Chino Copper company for the Chino mine; the company built a pumping station and a wooden pipeline to Hurley. The spring no longer flows.Michael Wallis, ''Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride'', 2008 {{isbn, 0393075435 As of 1916, this water was also used as the domestic water supply of Hurley.Donald Francis MacDonald, Charles Enzian, Geological Survey (U.S.), ''Prospecting and mining of copper ore at Santa Rita, New Mexico'', Govt. print. off., 191

/ref> The large

tailings pond In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overli ...

of the mine lies 1 mile to the southeast.

Notes

Populated places in Grant County, New Mexico Ranches in New Mexico Cowboy culture Apache Wars