New Mexico

110 years since ‘Pancho’ Villa’s attack on Columbus, New Mexico

Published

3 weeks ago

March 9, 2026

110 years since ‘Pancho’ Villa’s attack on Columbus, New Mexico

It is the 110th anniversary of Mexican revolutionary Gen. Francisco “Pancho” Villa’s attack on Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9, 1916.

The “Battle of Columbus,” as the raid is also known, was a pivotal moment in U.S.-Mexico border history and the first foreign ground invasion of the continental U.S. since 1812.

Camp Furlong Day

Pancho Villa State Park will commemorate the history surrounding Pancho Villa’s 1916 raid on the Village of Columbus on Saturday, March 14, during its Camp Furlong Day activities.

The annual event offers visitors an opportunity to explore the site where U.S. and Mexican history collided, shaping military strategy, border relations and life in southern New Mexico for generations.

Park visitors can participate in ranger-led tours and view exhibits highlighting Camp Furlong’s role during the Villa Raid.

Special guest presentations:

At 10 a.m., historian Glenn Minuth will present, “The Importance of Cootes Hill on the Raid on Columbus.”
At 1 p.m., Minuth returns with, “Mexican Death Train: The Santa Ysabel Massacre.”
At 2 p.m., historian Mike Anderson will present, “Tracks Through History: The Story of the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad.”

The Cabalgata Fiesta de Amistad includes the Memorial Ride from the border into Columbus, recognized as Luna County’s longest horse parade. Festivities continue in the downtown plaza with mariachis, folklorico dancers, and community gatherings honoring the shared cultural history of the border region.

Pancho Villa State Park is located at 228 W. Highway 9 in Columbus, New Mexico, approximately 30 miles south of Deming via Highway 11 or 70 miles west of Santa Teresa via Highway 9.

All activities are free and open to the public. Visitors are encouraged to arrive early. For details, visit www.emnrd.nm.gov/spd/find-a-park/pancho-villa-state-park/ or call 575-531-2711.

Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico

Here is an article by Chris Roberts that originally ran in the El Paso Times on Nov. 7, 2010.

COLUMBUS, N.M. — A moonless night of mayhem in 1916 that left hundreds of Mexican revolutionaries and a smaller number of U.S. cavalry soldiers and civilians dead opened wounds that still haunt this small border town nearly a century later.

Francisco “Pancho” Villa’s raid on Columbus began just after 4 a.m. on March 9. It was the last major invasion of the continental United States by a foreign armed force, according to New Mexico state historians.

Eight U.S. soldiers were killed in the fight and another died later of his injuries. Ten Columbus residents and one Mexican national died. Villa lost nearly 200 men, and about 75 more were killed as soldiers chased them back over the border immediately after the raid.

“It was kind of a rag-tag army, if you want to call it an army,” said Richard Dean, a Columbus historian whose great-grandfather was killed in the raid. “Many of them were peons. He could have wiped Columbus off the map in 30 minutes if he had an army.”

A hotel was torched by the Villistas, which turned out to be a significant tactical blunder. The fire spread to a grocery store and two smaller buildings. The town was looted.

In response, U.S. officials formed the “Punitive Expedition,” which was headed by then-Brig. Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing. Pershing’s mission was to enter Mexico; hunt down the raiders, particularly Villa; and bring them back to face trial.

Columbus’ economic losses from the raid were quickly offset as thousands of soldiers arrived for the expedition, which ended on Feb. 5, 1917. The garrison was not abandoned until 1924.

The expedition allowed the U.S. military to test its newfangled mechanized vehicles in battle conditions just before the nation entered World War I. That included Curtiss JN-3 “Jenny” biplanes, four-wheel drive trucks, Dodge touring cars and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

“The first batch (of eight Jennys) were out of commission in the first month,” said John Read, a heritage educator at Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus. “One was brought down by a dust devil.”

Expedition soldiers faced harsh conditions in the Chihuahuan desert — dehydrated by day and frozen at night. Most infantry soldiers wore canvas and glass goggles to protect their eyes.

“The dust down there was just horrendous,” Dean said.

Soldiers went as far as Parral, Mexico, but never found Villa. In the immediate aftermath of the raid, 14 wounded Villistas were captured, Dean said, with only six surviving. Five were hanged in Deming a few months after the raid. One received executive clemency, escaping the hangman’s noose with a life sentence.

Accounts of the raid have been numerous and often conflicting. And the perceptions of Villa run from national hero to terrorist, depending on who is speaking.

What follows is a re-creation of the raid drawn from historical reference works with heavy reliance on the Army’s staff ride, a teaching tool based largely on reports from the time. Other sources include interviews with Columbus historians, relatives of people involved, articles from the El Paso Times and other publications, and a New Mexico park service movie capturing oral histories from some who were there at an early age.

Trouble brews

In early 1916, Columbus was a growing town of about 400 residents. It had a school with 12 grades, three hotels, a bank, two mercantile stores, a grocery store, two drugstores, a hardware store, two churches, a lumberyard, a blacksmith shop and restaurants.

The modern age had arrived, represented by a Ford automobile dealership and a Coca-Cola bottling plant.

With revolution raging to the south, rumors of attack had become common. Townspeople prepared by conducting drills, finding the shortest route from home to the town’s more substantial brick and adobe buildings where family members could find a measure of safety.

The U.S. government, taking defensive measures, had established military camps along the Southwest border.

In Columbus, Army tents for enlisted soldiers in the 13th Cavalry were lined up across the railroad tracks from the town’s southern border. Col. Herbert J. Slocum, who lived in Columbus with most of the officers, had about 350 soldiers in camp.

Slocum was prevented from sending soldiers into Mexico by presidential policy. So, he and his soldiers scoured newspapers, questioned travelers from Mexico, pumped Mexican border guards and even paid a Mexican cowboy to find Villa’s force and report its location. Unfortunately for Slocum, most of his intelligence indicated Villa was moving away from Columbus.

In fact, Villa had targeted the town.

Villa’s motives are not entirely clear. However, historians agree that a number of factors likely contributed to his resolve.

President Woodrow Wilson had allowed Villa rival Venustiano Carranza to use U.S. railroads for troop transport. Carranza’s forces had traveled through Columbus into Arizona and on to Agua Prieta, Mexico, to hand Villa a significant defeat — one of many he was suffering at the time.

“It was a huge blow to his ego,” Dean said.

Some historians believe Villa was trying to provoke war between Carranza’s Mexico and the United States.

Villa felt he had protected U.S. residents and businesses in northern Mexico and saw Wilson’s move as a betrayal. And, after the mounting losses, Villa was reportedly low on provisions — weapons, ammunition, horses, food and other supplies.

Personal revenge may even have played a role. Sam Ravel, who owned a hotel and a general store in Columbus, allegedly accepted money from a Villa agent in 1913 for arms and ammunition. When Wilson banned the sale of those items to Mexican nationals, according to some accounts, Ravel kept the money without supplying the merchandise.

Whatever his motivation, Villa sent two spies to walk the streets of Columbus the day before the raid. They informed Villa his army would face only about 30 to 50 soldiers.

“Pancho Villa would never have done this if he had the correct intelligence,” Dean said.

The attack begins

Under clear skies, the Mexican soldiers prepared to attack. A sliver of moon set just after 11 p.m. on March 8, leaving only faint starlight to illuminate the desert landscape.

Reports vary as to whether Villa himself crossed into the United States, but most accounts put him at a staging area a little more than a mile southwest of town.

On horseback, nearly 500 Villistas approached the town from the west, north and south in a pincer movement.

At about 4:15 a.m., 1st Lt. John P. Lucas, who lived on the southwest side of town, heard the beat of horse hooves through his open window.

“I looked out, and although the night was very dark, I saw a man wearing a black sombrero riding towards camp,” Lucas reported. “From the sounds I heard, it seemed to me that he had quite a few companions and that my house was completely surrounded.”

Pvt. Fred Griffin, guarding regimental headquarters a stone’s throw from Lucas’ house, had spotted the raiders and called for them to halt. They shot him in the stomach. Griffin killed his assailant and two others. That commotion drew the Mexican soldiers away from Lucas’ house.

“I … have always felt that I owed him a great debt of gratitude,” Lucas wrote. “Unfortunately, he was killed.”

Officer of the day Lt. James P. Castleman, at his post as the staff duty officer, heard the gunshots and grabbed his pistol. As he wheeled around the corner of the duty shack, he collided with a Villista. Castleman fired first and killed the raider.

A barrage of gunfire erupted.

The main Villista attack moved into the center of town. Another wave hit the Army barracks and stables to the south. The rest attacked through residences and businesses on the north end of town.

At the barracks, Sgt. Michael Fody rounded up about 25 troopers armed with Springfield rifles. Castleman arrived and took command.

“On account of the darkness it was impossible to distinguish anyone, and for a moment I was under the impression that we were being fired upon by some of our own regiment,” Fody wrote. “The feeling was indescribable and when I heard Mexican voices opposite us, you can imagine my relief.”

Castleman directed his troops to the southeast side of Columbus and set up a firing line pointed back through the center of town.

Meanwhile, Lucas, with two of his gunners, broke into the locked weapons shed and armed themselves with 1916 Benet-Mercie “machine rifles.”

Lucas set up the guns at strategic locations on the south side of Columbus, firing northwest, also into the center of town. The two-man guns were unreliable and jammed at first.

Lucas and Castleman had set up a crossfire that raked the downtown area. By starlight, however, they could barely see.

The Villistas were all over the town, looting stores and looking for Ravel, whom Villa believed had cheated him. Ravel was in El Paso recovering from dental surgery.

Unable to find Ravel at his store, the Villistas went to a hotel he owned just north of Lucas’ gun emplacements. They killed some of its occupants and set it on fire. The fire spread to three other buildings, which illuminated the Villistas’ movements. The soldiers now were firing with deadly accuracy. For more than two hours, the fight continued until the Villistas began a retreat as the sun began to glow in the east.

Trish Long may be reached at tlong@elpasotimes.com.

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New Mexico

New Mexico State women’s basketball’s 3 best March Madness moments

Published

5 hours ago

April 1, 2026

Press Room

New Mexico State women’s basketball’s 3 best March Madness moments

New Mexico State’s women’s basketball team has entered a new era with the hiring of Adeniyi Amadou as its new coach. He’ll try to take the Aggies back to the NCAA Tournament, where they appeared multiple times in the 1980s and 2010s.

NM State has six NCAA Tournaments, four conference tournament championships (all won as part of the Western Athletic Conference) and eight regular-season conference championships to its name in women’s basketball. The Aggies have reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament once in 1988, although that was when teams could receive first-round byes if they were a high enough seed (they were a No. 6 seed then and lost to Washington in their first NCAA Tournament game).

Let’s look back on some of those seasons. Here are the three best March Madness moments in NM State’s women’s basketball history:

First conference tournament win (2015)

NM State began its WAC dynasty in 2015.

The Aggies won their first-ever conference tournament in women’s basketball in the 2015 WAC Tournament. NM State was the regular-season conference champion and earned the No. 1 seed and a bye to the semifinals of the WAC Tournament as a result. The Aggies went 2-0 to secure a conference tournament championship.

Bolstered by 22 points from Sasha Weber and 16 rebounds from Brianna Freeman, NM State pulled out a 79-75 overtime win in the semifinals over Seattle. Another 20 points from Weber helped the Aggies win the WAC Tournament championship game 70-52 over UT-Pan American (which has since merged with UT-Brownsville to form UTRGV) and reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1988. Freeman was named the WAC Tournament MVP.

Three in a row (2017)

The Aggies would then make it three consecutive WAC Tournament championships two years later.

NM State entered the 2017 WAC Tournament with a perfect 14-0 conference record, and it kept that unbeaten run going. The Aggies defeated UMKC (now referred to as Kansas City) 71-63 in the semifinals thanks to four players scoring in double figures, including Moriah Mack’s 21 points in 40 minutes of action. NM State then took down Seattle 63-48 in the championship game off the back of a double-double from Tamera William at 19 points and 10 rebounds.

Mack won the WAC Tournament MVP that year. She scored 18 points against the Redhawks in the championship game. It was the third and final WAC Tournament championship for then-coach Mark Trakh before he joined USC.

Resilience in overtime (2019)

Another regular-season conference championship wasn’t enough in 2018, as the Aggies lost to Seattle in the semifinals. But NM State got back on its perch in the WAC in the following year.

Guided by second-year coach Brooke Atkinson, the Aggies needed two overtime victories to win the 2019 WAC Tournament after defeating Chicago State in the quarterfinals (the WAC Tournament went from seven to eight teams starting in 2018, with no byes to the semifinals). The first one came in a 91-80 win over UMKC after NM State allowed just five points in overtime. The Aggies were forced into double overtime during the championship game against UTRGV, which ended with a 76-73 win.

Gia Pack scored 86 points across the WAC Tournament, including 36 against UMKC, to win the tournament’s MVP. Brooke Salas scored a team-high 29 points in the championship game.

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New Mexico

‘Just incredibly creative’: Tinkertown near Albuquerque prepares for the season

Published

17 hours ago

March 31, 2026

Press Room

‘Just incredibly creative’: Tinkertown near Albuquerque prepares for the season

BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) — Wood carvings, glass bottles, and other odds and ends help make up an art museum tucked away on Sandia Crest Road. It all started over 40 years ago with a man aiming to be as creative, as curious, and as open to experience as possible – Ross Ward.

“I often describe a walk through the museum as kind of walking through the head and the heart of my dad… You begin to understand that this person was very passionate, very curious, very excited, and just incredibly creative,” said Ross’s daughter, Tanya Ward Goodman. “And it inspired you to do the same.”

Tinkertown is an artist-built environment that first opened its doors in 1983. There you can find animated miniature figures, various artifacts from Ross’s travels, and thousands of glass bottles, among much more. The spot has been around for quite a bit now, but they’ve recently made an exciting new change that’s been in the works for years.

“We have turned the entire museum into a 501(c)(3),” said Tanya. “And our mission is to preserve and protect the work and the artistic legacy of Ross Ward and translate his vision into a rousing call to live a more creative and colorful life.” Tanya added that it “has always been a little bit of a self-sustaining enterprise… the fact that all proceeds already went into the operation and management of the museum, it really isn’t a huge leap for us.”

Their main goal as a non-profit? To ramp up art and writing workshops while encouraging rural collaboration between New Mexico artists. It’s also a way to potentially bring more helping hands to the museum.

“My dad died in 2002. He had early onset Alzheimer’s. He was diagnosed at 57, and he died at 62. And my stepmother, Carla Ward, has been running the museum since his death, and she’s getting to a place where she would like to retire or take some steps back,” said Tanya. “I think she’ll always be involved because she loves it and it’s been such a deep labor of love on her part… We had been sort of exploring different options and thinking about how to keep the museum open while also having some sort of retirement for her, and we would need to bring in extra people.”

The change comes in time for Tinkertown’s 2026 season opening on Friday, April 3, with a grand opening celebration on Sunday, April 5 – Ross’s birthday. There will be live music, cake, book signings, and more. “I wrote a memoir called ‘Leaving Tinkertown’ that was published by the University of New Mexico Press,” said Tanya. “I will be signing books. University of New Mexico Press will sell that book. We have other books about Tinkertown. Other authors will be there.”

As for the 2026 season overall, Tinkertown hopes to see more familiar faces and new faces alike come through the doors. “People come from not only all over New Mexico and the rest of the U.S., but all over the world,” said Tanya. “We have a huge map and there are, by the end of the season, there are colored pins in almost every continent and country in the world… I think what I hope that they learn is just that if you have an idea and an interest that you can follow that and wonderful things will happen.”

You can learn more about Tinkertown on their website.

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New Mexico

Warm weather around New Mexico for now, but stormier & cooler tomorrow

Published

1 day ago

March 31, 2026

Press Room

Warm weather around New Mexico for now, but stormier & cooler tomorrow

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Mostly mild air has started off across the region with morning temperatures being warmer than average. Clouds are passing through with moisture aloft coming in from the Pacific. Despite the drop in the jet stream compared to last week, the southwesterly flow with mostly dry surface conditions will lead to very mild air this afternoon before rain chances increase.

Air temperatures in the north are starting off from around the high 20s to the 40s, while elsewhere to the southwest, air temperatures are ranging from around the upper 30s to near 60°.

Many areas from eastern New Mexico to the Pecos River Valley area will range from the high 60s to around 90°, from north-northwest to south-southeast from high to low elevation. Southwesterly winds are set to go up, over, and down more of the northeast-sloped mountain faces out west will contribute to warm surface air and some gusty surface conditions. The northern higher elevations will mostly range from the upper 30s to the 50s, while the northern valley floors to western and central areas will mostly range from the 60s to the 80s.

More clouds will move in on top of the very mild surface conditions, leading to more isolated pockets of rainfall, as dry thunderstorms may spark up more fires. Stronger winds from the approaching system will elevate the fire threat even more tomorrow in southeastern areas. However, the drop in the jet stream will bring in better rain chances late today into the first half of tomorrow, with mountain peak snow, as well as colder air.

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