he Franklin Mountain Range contains six peaks: its highest—North Franklin—rises 7,192 feet above sea level. The Franklins begin east of downtown El Paso and just north of Interstate 10. Two thirds of the mountains, which run 17 miles north to the New Mexico state line, are conserved within the 40-sq.-mile Franklin Mountains State Park, created from mostly private property by the Texas Legislature in 1979 after 16 months of El Paso City Council negotiations. (The FMSP is America’s only state park surrounded by a municipality.) The remaining third of the Franklins are within the 7,081-acre/11-square-mile Castner Range, whose long western boundary is the State Park’s eastern boundary for several miles. The Range is a non-contiguous part of Fort Bliss, which with the Army’s adjacent White Sands Missile Range constitutes—at more than 4,900 square miles—the largest military base in the United States. El Paso lies at the far western end of Texas and borders Ciudad Juárez, Mexico on the south and the state of New Mexico on the west and north. Located entirely within the 140,000-square-mile Chihuahuan Desert, El Paso’s climate is dry (annual rainfall 8”) with mild winters, windy springs, hot summers and temperate autumns. The Franklin Mountains rise from the desert and the views from—and of—them are spectacular, especially on the broad alluvial plain at the eastern end of the Range and just beyond, the working-class “Northeast” neighborhoods.
Castner Range contains numerous archaeological and historical resources that date as far back as the Paleo-Indian, Archaic and historic Indian groups. The Paleo-Indian complex lasted from about 8000 B.C. to 4000 B.C. and was initially characterized by big-game hunting. When big game diminished, Paleo-Indians entered into the Archaic period (4000 B.C.-1000 A.D.) characterized by rock shelter habitation, open campsites and rudimentary surface shelters of wood, brush and earth, evidence of which is present throughout Castner Range. The Hueco and the Mesilla phases (through 1200 A.D., and also found on the Range) were characterized by the domestication of plant foods, the introduction and subsequent improvement of various pottery types, the adoption of the semi-subsurface “pit houses” and the formation of villages. In the next time/cultural unit (the Doña Ana Phase, 1100-1200 A.D.) the pit house gave way to a sturdier, erosion-resistant surface structure made from reeds and adobe. The introduction of corn and the control of surface-water resources established an agricultural base on the Range in those years. In the final pre-Hispanic period (the El Paso Phase, 1200-1450 A.D.), weather-resistant one-story contiguous-room “pueblo”-style dwellings were erected to serve what had become a mainly agrarian society. On Castner Range, the most common archaeological artifacts found are bedrock mortars for milling or grinding plant foods, rock shelters, rock art, and pottery. Three zones especially rich in archaeological material are the White Rock Shelter area, the Indian Springs Canyon and the Fusselman Canyon Petroglyph Site. Nor did the twentieth century fail to make its mark on Castner Range; recent historical properties include stone foundations, remnants of moving-target rail systems, mining remains, a heliograph site, military firing berms and residues of pre-1926 ranching days.