Dona Ana County and Evirons, New Mexico Territory 1873

[RevGunn]

This is my map of the region we're gaming in. Its Boot Hill 3rd Edition. I worked from a map that I found of the area circa 1895. Lots and lots of stuff changed in those years. I then went on a ghost town hunt. Using my google-fu, I went looking at the founding date of each settlement, trying to figure out if it was inhabited or not in 1873. Wow. I will say I've learned a bunch of New Mexico history. I already knew quite a bit, I'm from the area. On the one hand, that was great. Knowledge is always good. I now know all kinds of useless little details.... I just got so caught up in it I've stopped work on the map.

It was all going so well, treating it like a Fantasy map, since in a sense it is. Then, "Mr. Bright Idea" decided to go look at google maps and see the satellite photos. Things went down hill from there. After lots of time spent, I saw that I had forgotten White Sands. My peaks don't look like the satellite pics. The shadows on the mountains also... annoy me. I used Kjdavies method on the mountains. I tried Rob's but I kept getting less than pleasing results. I know I did something wrong somewhere, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. I got some AWESOME looking rocks that way though. There is lots more water in the area too but I can't see it on the google maps. Its not shown on the old map. So, I'm left with trying to find a map that does have it, or just making stuff up. A couple of creeks/rivers and draws I know are there, since I've been there, but the rest... I'm at a loss. I guess I'll just fill in the ones I know about til I find another reference map. I've got a Rand McNally county by county road atlas/gazetteer thing if I could just find it. (From back in my outlaw trucking days. Nothing better for sneaking around scales.)

The old map My Mapwithout old map superimposed