History of Fishers Peak
(Ratón Mountain)
Where the West Began
In southern Colorado, USA on the old Santa Fe Trail there is a spur of the Ratón Mesa named Fishers Peak. It stands at 9,632 feet above sea level. And any native Coloradeño will proudly tell you it's the highest point from from the Great Plains to the East Coast.
In the year 2019-2020, the state purchased it with plans to make it the newest state park. In honor of this achievement, I present the history of the peak.
History
The story begins over 170 years ago with a man named Lieutenant William H. Emory. He was an officer of the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers and specialized in creating border maps for the military.
William H. Emory. U.S. Military Academy Archives.
At the start of the US-Mexico War in 1846, Emory accompanied General Stephen Kearny's Army of the West as they marched through the present-day Southwest region of the United States. As the march continued, the Army passed through the area that would later become southern Colorado, and they reached the Ratón Mountain, a well-known landmark on the old Santa Fe Trail. They crossed over the mountain using the Ratón Pass. Upon reaching that trail's highest elevation, it was there that Emory stopped and turned around to gaze upon the beautiful scenery that present-day Colorado had to offer before descending into modern-day New Mexico. In his journal, Notes Of A Military Reconnaissance: From Fort Leavenworth, In Missouri, To San Diego, In California,
Emory specifically wrote about the stunning peaks and mountains that he witnessed there.
Here is an excerpt:
"The view is inexplicably beautiful… Pikes Peak, the Wahatoya [Spanish Peaks]…and to the east rose the Ratón [Peak]...presenting the appearance of a succession of castles..."
Emory's observation from the Ratón Pass saddle point. Ratón Mountain (Mesa) is the source name for many of the region's topographical features, including its peak, pass, creek, basin, and the modern-day town of Ratón, New Mexico. Like New York is the name for the city and state, Ratón is the name for the mesa and the collection of mesas that straddle southeastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico.
Since Emory was commissioned by a directive of the US Senate, he had the authority to name the hill (present-day Bartlett Mesa) atop the Ratón Pass. He gave it the name of Fischer Peak, which he actually wrote down on his map in 1848. The mountain spur in present-day Trinidad retained the name, Ratón. How they confused the two natural landmarks is a different story.
After the Civil War ended in 1865, new settlers moved into this region from back East. As they passed through the Ratón Pass and the original Fischer Peak, they ignored them altogether. The settlers continued their journey until they reached the Purgatoire River. Once they saw the spur in Trinidad, the settlers called it Fisher's Peak. They assumed it was the same hill that Emory had named previously, but it wasn't. He had named the hill atop the Ratón Pass instead.
A lot of the old-timers in Trinidad knew the difference between the two natural landmarks. They objected to the idea of renaming their beloved Ratón as Fisher's Peak. But the mapmakers ignored the protest and started producing new maps with "Fishers Peak" printed next to Trinidad. It has been that way ever since.
Written by Abe the Driver
Twitter: abegonzalez1
Travel Blog
Work Cited
Emory, W. H. (1848). Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, from Fort Leavenworth, in Missouri, to San Diego, in California, including parts of the Arkansas, Del Norte, and Gila Rivers. Washington: Wendell and Van Benthuysen. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/notesofmilitaryr00emorrich/page/n5/mode/2up