Generations Meet in History

By Bill Sontag
bill.sontag@delrionewsherald.com
Staff Writer, Del Rio News-Herald

Reprinted with permission of the Del Rio News-Herald
Published April 11, 2005

Red figure silhouettes on the walls of Painted Canyon still stare and gesture from the limestone as they did about 1,200 years ago.

A mere 114 years ago, a few white settlers, perhaps the first of their kind to see the paintings, built a low-ceilinged, limestone, slab-walled cabin within a pebble's throw of the gaze of the Red Monochrome images.

Looking back across the years at both prehistoric and historic remnants Saturday were hard working youths, a scientist, two educators, and the last remaining member of a historic Del Rio ranching family.

Eagle Scout candidate Jacob Lee, his parents Maury and Toni, and ten friends scraped the stubborn, cobbly desert, roughing out a 100-yard path from the ranch road to the old, now roofless cabin.

About a year ago, Dr. Carolyn Boyd, director of the Shumla School, and Missy Harrington, rancher/retired schoolteacher, found an enigmatic inscription low on one of the cabin's interior walls. Scratched into the side of a thick wedge of stone was a still readable scrawl:  "FRANK GREENWOOD 1891."

Saturday, Frankie Lee Harlow, 82, tolerated well the sharp bumps, bounces and jolts over five miles of truck-worn ranch road, then gingerly walked about 300 feet on rough, sloping, rock-and-shrub desert terrain. Harlow's goal was the cabin where her grandfather inscribed his name more than a century ago.

Above Frank Greenwood's name, on another wall, was a second inscription in a different hand. "Santiago. All men are free."

Harlow said her grandfather, as a child, came from Tennessee in the early 1880s. "My great grandfather, Beverly Carter Greenwood, bought what we've always called 'the Comstock ranch,'" she explained. The family achieved some wealth in the sheep business, continuing when her father, Frank Greenwood Jr. returned to the family livestock operation after World War I.

But, finally struggling to see the faint inscription, Harlow had no idea why her grandfather would have been on the old Zuberbueler ranch, developed by Missy Harrington's great grandfather, John U. Zuberbueler, about the same time as the Greenwoods came to Texas.

"And we don't have any idea who built the cabin," said Boyd. She is optimistic that a distinctive mark beside Greenwood's name may be another clue. A brand? A military insignia?

Boyd hopes that anyone familiar with either the military or the early ranching history of Val Verde County might recognize some of the clues, and add missing pieces to the puzzle.

The cabin, the ancient art on Painted Canyon's walls, and flourishing desert vegetation, all framed in the Cretaceous period geology of southwest Texas, serve as something of an annex campus to activities at Shumla School. The two sites do not adjoin, but both offer learning opportunities for the non-profit education center's clients.

This spring the desert is blooming with uncharacteristic intensity, a product of last year's abundant rains, seed crops and persistent ground moisture.

So, Lee's trail work is surrounded by clumps of vermilion claret cup cactus, patches of purple verbena, and rangy mounds of violet guayacán or soapbush.

Just above the cave paintings a large drooping, wax comb is vigorously protected by swarms of bees. Below the comb, a recent collection of vegetative debris in the spring-fed stream dams normal water flow, subsequently threatening the paintings.

So, according to Boyd, the site is abundant with lessons, challenges and mysteries. "Right now we just want to research it. We don't know who built the cabin. We're not sure how to deal with the dam and the bees. What's interesting, though, is how many years of occupation there has been there in that one location, and all due to the water."

 The availability of water has driven decisions in the area for thousands of years, and Boyd sees strong parallels between prehistory and history in Painted Canyon, and contemporary debates bubbling up now in political arenas over water conservancy districts.

But the old ranch, cabin, and rock art site has strong aesthetic appeal that Boyd and Harrington want to share for the lessons to be learned. "We've taken lots of folks up there," Boyd said Sunday.

 Aside from its remoteness and rough road access, "The site is one of the most accessible to see rock art," Boyd added. "And the trail, which will eventually continue down to the paintings, will really help people who might not otherwise see these great resources."

Saturday, Harlow finished the last leg of her somewhat strenuous hike over freshly cleared trail. Lee was asked how many merit badges he needed to complete, beyond his Eagle Scout trail project.

"Three," Lee replied.

"I'll give you one," said Harlow in gratitude.