Camp Saturnino's Alien

   Sci-Fi!  What?  While "California Rifles" is out for edit, I decided to explore a different genre.  I am writing a science fiction short story.  Part of the story takes place in Camp Saturnino, New Mexico.  Saturnino—isn’t that a great name for a sci-fi scene?  Camp Saturnino is located 60 miles west of the infamous Hangar 84 at Roswell Army Airfield.
   Today, Camp Saturnino is managed by the U.S. Forest Service as Baca Campground.  It is a serene campground at the foot of the Capitan Mountains in the Lincoln National Forest.  Baca Campground is chocked full of history:  a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp, a young women’s job-skills academy, and a Japanese immigrant detention facility.  It has also been known as CCC Camp F-17-N, Old Camp Raton, Old Raton Ranch, and Camp Capitan.
   The camp’s namesake, Saturnino Baca, was a prominent citizen of Lincoln County in the 1870s and beyond.  During the American Civil War, Baca served as a lieutenant in the Union’s 1st New Mexico Cavalry Regiment.  In 1866, he was promoted to captain and served briefly as the commanding officer of Fort Stanton.  He left the army and became a sheep rancher.  On July 11, 1889, he was shot by cattlemen in an apparent grazing rights dispute, which caused his right arm to be amputated.[1]  Baca died in 1925.  I’m not sure of his relationship to the camp that was named after him; the 22-acre site was deeded to the U.S. government two years after his death in 1927.[2]
   When cowboy William M. Crow purchased the “old Raton ranch in Lincoln county from [sheep rancher] Martine Chaves” in April 1914 it was described as:

• “The old Raton ranch consists of 440 acres of patented land in the national forest at the foot of the Capitan mountains.  It has pure spring water, an orchard and fine pasture land.”[3]  Chaves had purchased the ranch from L. B. Walters in 1895.[4] 

The description matches that of the area around Baca Campground.  A natural spring, labeled Baca Spring on maps, continues to feed a stream that runs through the campground.  Cattle are present on both public and private lands (i.e.,Ponderosa Springs Ranch, with approximately 3,461 deeded acres and 13,496 leased Forest Service acres).   Given Baca’s experience with cowboys, I can only imagine his opinion of the current environment.

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 Here is a U.S. Forest Service summary of Camp Saturnino’s history:

• In the fall of 1933, the Lincoln National Forest designated 20 acres of the site as a Civilian Conservation Corps camp location. This area was named Camp Saturnino Baca F-17-N. The CCC boys worked through the summer of 1934 and then were transferred to the Mayhill, New Mexico camp when the LNF condemned the camp for winter occupation. The CCC buildings sat vacant for a year and then were re-occupied by the Unemployed Girls Education Camp, a program under the National Youth Administration for rural girls with no access to schools. Renamed Camp Capitan, the program operated on the site year round for 5 years, and once again the camp was abandoned in 1940 when money ran out for the program. In December 1941, Japanese railroad workers and their families from Clovis, New Mexico, were brought to the vacant camp buildings for their protection against the mobs that were angry about the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Thirty-two individuals, including two families with children born in the U.S., lived at the camp through 1942, after which they were ultimately sent to internment camps.[5]

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   I camped at the Baca Campground in May 2023.  It is a primitive, spacious site off U.S. Highway 380 between the towns of Capitan and Lincoln, New Mexico.  The access road is a 5.3-mile, dirt road that is passable in a compact car if nature has been recently kind.  I saw deer, elk, fox, and bighorn sheep in the vicinity of the campground.  One of the highlights is the chimney that was built in the 1930s.  If you’re curious, check out my 6+ minute video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Gv_2Eo_9yDw.
   So, back to my story… the protagonists rescue a creature from Hangar 84.  They hightail it to Camp Saturnino where they learn that they have more in common with the creature than they expected.  Then, they head to China where… never mind, you’ll have to read the story after it’s published.
Notes:
[1] “Another Cowardly Affair in Lincoln—Saturnino Baca Shot,” Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, August 12, 1889, p. 4, col. 4 (accessed on 6/23/2023, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020631/1889-08-12/ed-1/seq-4/).
[2] Diane Stallings, “Two Historical Markers slated for Lincoln County,” Ruidoso News, July 30, 2015 (accessed on 6/23/2023, https://www.ruidosonews.com/story/news/local/lincoln/2015/07/30/two-historical-markers-slated-lincoln-county/71568900/).
[3] “Cowboy Buys Cattle Ranch in Lincoln County,” El Paso Herald, April 28, 1914, p. 10, col. 3 (accessed on 6/23/2023, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88084272/1914-04-28/ed-1/seq-10/).
[4] Santa Fe Daily New Mexican, April 18, 1895, p. 4, col. 3 (accessed on 6/23/2023). https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020631/1895-04-23/ed-1/seq-4/).
[5] “Recovering History through Metal Detection,” U.S. Forest Service, September 28, 2018 (accessed 6/23/2023, https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/deliver/recovering-history-through-metal-detection). ​

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