Driving west on US 70 out of Alamogordo, New Mexico, the San Andres and Organ Mountains rise straight up from the desert floor. To the north, triangulated sections of the San Andres Mountains divide the Tularosa Valley from the Jornada del Muerto, a desolate segment of the Camino Real where so many early travelers lost their lives. To the south, the Organ Mountains, named by seventeenth century Spanish explorers for their pipe-like spires, puncture the sky. US 70 cuts through the two ranges at San Agustin pass. The summit is 5,719 feet. The road quickly descends, falling away to the Chihuahuan desert, the Rio Grande Valley, and city of Las Cruces.

It is easy to miss the town of Organ. It lies just west of the pass and close to a highway marker commemorating the site of San Agustin Springs where exhausted Union troops surrendered without a shot due to heat and lack of water. A Thai restaurant, two salvage yards, several abandoned storefronts, and a trailer park make up Organ’s business district. A sign advertising “Sandwitches-Lunches-Beer-Dinners” hangs on a rock façade, and a newer sign for Toro Rock points the way to a nearby quarry. Close to 800 people live in Organ. Retirees and commuters to Las Cruces or White Sands Missile Range live within a few blocks of US 70.  Houses are small and tidy, for the most part. Many were salvaged from White Sands when the military sold off modular units in the 1950’s to make way for permanent housing. Other houses are built of cinderblock or rock. There are several mobile homes. Most of the houses are fenced, separating two-lot properties facing streets that are just now being paved with asphalt. A single-wide trailer substitutes as a community center. It sits on the side of a barren baseball field. The field is covered with sections of yellowed grass, dirt spots, and puncture vine. A recently built playground stands empty. Residents mostly stay inside, preferring their swamp-cooled homes to the high desert heat, constant winds, and driving monsoon rains.

Organ wasn’t always this quiet. During its heyday at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, Organ claimed a population of 2,000 people.  Businesses paid out $20,000 a month in wages. The mines in nearby San Andres and Organ Mountains produced nearly two million dollars in ore. The existing baseball field was the scene of raucous and fiercely-fought baseball games. Organ’s meteoric rise lasted from 1884 to 1907. Like so many other mining towns of the West, Organ’s story is one of boom and bust, revival and decline. It is also the story of how one baseball team mirrored and embodied the rise and fall of a town, captured its imagination, and shared its defeat.

In 1884, Camp Organ was an 80 acre, newly surveyed town site. Two hundred residents had just petitioned President Chester A. Arthur to make the town official in anticipation of explosive growth. Numerous mines dotted the nearby hills including the Hawkeye, Bertha, Jay Gould, Short Cut, and Chippewa. New mining claims were being filed in record numbers. The largest mine was the Memphis mine. It was unique in that it contained both copper and lead ore. The potential of this one mine justified building an adjacent smelter and supporting structures to convert ore into precious metal on site.

The sky was the limit.  In 1884 Civil War veterans, California gold miners, and down-and-out men descended on Organ to work the mines, and none were turned away. Lots were drawn for home sites, and businesses sprang up overnight. The Silver Palace, a sleeping tent operated by Mrs. Senior Woods, advertised clean beds for a reasonable price. There was no mention of the oppressive heat or sudden downpours of rain. Duncan McCowan built a two-story hotel for those wishing more protected accommodations. The Williams Brothers General Store carried groceries, clothing, and mining supplies including explosives. In the same business district as today, there were seven bars, a restaurant, a barbershop, and a bowling alley.  Dr. Cowan dispensed various liniments and remedies from his drug store. A tunnel jail dug into the side of a hill did double duty as a powder magazine. It was usually filled with both men and gun powder. Organ was a tough place to live, and the number of miners buried at the Slumbering Mountain Cemetery attest to a place where it was easy to die. Men died during the day in the mines. Danger lurked in the bars where all-night poker games, fueled by cheap alcohol, often ended in fist fights, knife fights, and gun fights.

The mines produced more ore than mules, men, and carts could haul away. Shifts were added to keep the mines running twenty four hours a day. Workers were needed, and newspaper headlines blazoned boom times in Organ. Skilled men, once reluctant to expose wives and children to the rowdy lifestyle, were seduced by the wages and soon outnumbered itinerant, single men. Bar life continued, but civic events started appearing. Committees formed and town meetings convened to decide the future of the town. The first Fourth of July Celebration was to be a family affair for the entire county. It was advertised prominently in the Rio Grande Republican. Organ was becoming a respectable community, and the Fourth of July was its coming out party. A game of baseball between the traveling Las Cruces team, the Montezumas, and the newly formed Organ Nines was the highlight of the day.

The newly formed Nines had a lot to fear from the Montezumas. The Las Cruces team was a seasoned team tested by men stationed at nearby Fort Selden. When not protecting settlers from Indian raids and renegades from the Mexican War, the soldiers played baseball to pass the time. It was an outlet to escape the hot and stuffy barracks, played even as the temperatures soared and the rain came down.  Opening the Rio Grande Republican newspaper, a rival baseball player or fan couldn’t help but notice what other teams were up to, as in the 1883 notice from Ft. Selden:

Another rain has visited us with the usual results; making holes for the

water to come in, and for the tarantulas to go out, and dampening everything

but the spirits of the soldiers. In a base-ball match played today, between

picked nines from the companies here, Co. B, 13^th Infantry and Troop B,

4^th Cavalry, some very fine work was shown.

Ft. Selden teams were good, but there was a better team just 13 miles away. On the bottomland and grass plots of Las Cruces, the Montezumas laid waste to every Ft. Selden team each time they took to the field. The Montezumas were independent, hard-working farmers and ranchers of the Rio Grande Valley. Faced with constant threats from Mescalero Apaches, they were tough men and quickly cultivating a resentment of mine owners in the mountains to the east. A dollar a day wage in the valley translated into four dollars in Organ, and ranch hands were quitting in droves. Baseball was an outlet and a source of pride. Hispanics whose ancestors were original Spanish explorers played shoulder-to-shoulder with Anglos who survived harsh overland journeys to arrive in Las Cruces. These proud men were united in one pursuit:  routing every baseball team they encountered. In 1883, they were undefeated.

The Montezumas welcomed the invitation by Organ to play a baseball game against a bunch of miners. In stagecoaches and buggies, the team and its fans arrived by the hack line from Las Cruces. It was July and the destination was over a mile high in elevation. In 108° heat and at altitude, the two teams took to the dirt field at 3:00 in the afternoon. The thin air made the hits go further, and the Organ Nines knew where to hit balls on their home field. The visiting team had to breathe harder and was slower running the bases. Two hours later, to the shock of the visitors and the glee of the home team, the Organ team claimed victory with a score of 22-10. The Rio Grande Republican painted a pretty picture where“…despite the torrid rays, the boys played as though exercise were necessary to keep their blood in circulation; and ladies, risking all the dangers of exposure to the fierce rays of old Sol, clapped their kid gloved hands in appreciation of the lively work on the diamond field.” The reporter from Las Cruces was not completely waylaid by Organ’s civic façade. The paper was quick to play up the post-game party at LaPointe’s Saloon in Organ where the two teams emptied a barrel of beer and a basket of champagne. The newspaper account a couple of days later attempted to assuage the Las Cruces loss:

Our left fielder is sick, our catcher is lame;

Our shortstop is playing a very poor game;

Two pitchers are used up, the other is wild;

The basemen can’t play when the weather ain’t mild;

The man in the right field is suffering from chills;

The ‘sub’ has a queer complication of ills;

Just what bothers our captain the doctor can’t tell—

But that is the reason they beat us like h—!

Organ won, and the victory carried the team and town on the crest of exuberance and excitement of a town where a rag-tag team beat the best of the best.

As the underdog team and unruly town reveled in their victory, good times in Organ began to wane. A year after the game, a plan for a railroad spur was cancelled, and the smelter next to the Memphis mine moved to Las Cruces. Other mines continued to produce ore sporadically, but water began to bubble from below the ground and did not stop. By the turn of the century, pumps were required in the major mines to clear the water so operations could continue. Still the mines flooded. As production costs soared, prices for ore plummeted. Unmarried miners departed the area to search for work elsewhere. To encourage the remaining families, in 1907 town leaders approved a new schoolhouse, Catholic Church, and planned for an expanded Fourth of July Celebration. Events included burro roping, a drilling contest and ladies egg carrying challenge, free barbeque for everyone, and plenty of dancing. Perhaps as a harbinger or out of spite, the newspaper noted the baseball game between the Las Cruces Montezumas and the Organ Nines in the last sentence of the activities.

On the day of the celebration, the weather was mild. A gentle breeze blew across the field as thunderheads formed in the distance. Fewer visitors wandered the streets confirming town members’ fear that cessation of the hack line from Las Cruces was a bad idea. It was financially a hard time for the state, but money was tighter in Organ. Outside funds for food and entertainment were solicited. Press accounts reflected the changing times. The pregame taunting in the papers of 1884 and the names and positions of the lineups were absent this time, pushed out by ads for Las Cruces real estate businesses. The paper pointed out other people “found” from across the divide and “other wheres” were recruited in the absence of a home crowd.

Despite the efforts of the residents of Organ to prove otherwise, the outside world controlled the stage, looking in on the town and its team. Excitement was palpable as the citizens of Organ took to the stands to cheer their team. The mines were failing, but rumors of war abounded. War meant a rise in the price of metals. The newly established Torpedo mine had potential to carry the town of Organ to another boom, this time on the tide of copper. Flooding was still a problem, but it was happening in the hills above the baseball field, far away from the teams facing each other that day. The 1884 team was long gone. The 1907 team was a new team made up of family men who were respectable residents of Organ. What could go wrong?

Las Cruces won the game “making three scores to Organ’s one each inning.” There were no barrels of beer or baskets of champagne this time, but the celebration was not a total loss. Austin Beasley won the $50 prize for the drilling contest by drilling the deepest hole in fifteen minutes, and Delia Isaacks won the egg carrying challenge. As a denouement, the paper noted that:

The gentlemen both of Organ and Las Cruces, deserve a vote of thanks

from the community. The delicious refreshments, coming from El Paso

and the varied entertainment drawing the people of the three towns together,

help us all commercially and socially, and a day of such festivity helps

all the weary workers, in this little southwestern corner, to get up and go on.

Although the Organ players played their hearts out during that Fourth of July Celebration, the mines within walking distance were being played out.  Nothing could be done to stop their eventual demise.
Production costs continued skyward in the face of an increasingly competitive market. Prohibition closed the bars. By 1933 only a few families remained in Organ. An aerial photograph in 1948 shows just ten buildings in a town site that once was bursting at its seams. Although Organ rebounded in the 1950’s, a result of the burgeoning military-industrial complex exploding just over the pass, the days of exuberance of newfound wealth were long gone.

Baseball games of long ago may seem quaint glimpses into the past, rightly relegated to archives. Amid those yellowing papers there are rosters, run and out records, and statistics with names and the positions of players who fiercely defended their piece of turf. What the papers do not tell are the hopes of a town and the concession of a dream summed up in nine innings of two games a couple of decades apart. In Organ, walking the perimeter of the baseball field today, kicking rocks that may have been dislodged by a player rounding the bases over 125 years ago, the cheers of a visiting team and the polite clapping of the home team wives wearing kid-skinned gloves are carried on the wind down the all-but deserted streets.