Description

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The Guadalupe Mountains stand nearly 9,000 feet tall, spanning the far western fringe of Texas, the border of New Mexico, and the meeting point of the Southern Plains and Chihuahuan Desert. Long an iconic landmark of the Trans-Pecos region, the Guadalupe Mountains have played a critical role for the people in this beautiful corner of the Southwest borderlands. In the late 1960s, the area was finally designated a national park.

Drawing upon published sources, oral histories, and previously unused archival documents, Jeffrey P. Shepherd situates the Guadalupe Mountains and the national park in the context of epic tales of Spanish exploration, westward expansion, Native survival, immigrant settlement, the conservation movement, early tourism, and regional economic development. As Americans cope with climate change, polarized political rhetoric, and suburban sprawl, public spaces such as Guadalupe Mountains National Park remind us about our ties to nature and our historical relationships with the environment.

About the Author

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JEFFREY P. SHEPHERD is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Praise For…

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"Guadalupe Mountains National Park will find a welcome readership with the general public and in academic circles. Shepherd makes important inroads in the fields of environmental history of the American West, conservation history, historical geography of western America, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands."—Sterling Evans, author of Bound in Twine: The History and Ecology of the Henequen­Wheat Complex for Mexico and the American and Canadian Plains, 1880–1950

"Jeffrey P. Shepherd narrates a colorful history of one of the most unlikely national parks in the country. Examining the park in conversation with scholarship on the history of the American West, environmental history, and borderlands history is a significant contribution."—Flannery Burke, author of A Land Apart: The Southwest and the Nation in the Twentieth Century

"Jeffrey Shepherd's instructive environmental history is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the Guadalupe Mountains, its fragile, arid ecosystem, and how humans have interacted with and impacted their environment over the millennia."—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

"This book is well crafted for the general reader, the Southwest enthusiast, land tenure and indigenous scholars, western historians, and those who appreciate the intricacies of early park formation. Highly readable, this book is a must for those who love the Southwest, the desert, and the mountains within it."—H-Net Reviews