TWO YOUNG MESCALERO APACHE MEN, 1888
The Mescalero Apaches were a semi-nomadic people who once roamed the area of New Mexico, West Texas, and Chihuahua. The word "Apache" means "enemy" in the Zuņi language, as they were feared by the pueblo tribes of northern New Mexico as well by the Spanish. The Gila and Chiricahua Apaches were to the west and the Lipan Apaches to the east, but the Mescaleros were once the largest and most powerful Apache nation among them.
The Mescaleros are documented archeologically in our region as early as the thirteenth century. They began raiding local Spanish settlements and traveling caravans starting in the 1680s. Between 1778 and 1825 there was a large band of Mescaleros encamped on the future site of Duranguito and Downtown El Paso, peaking at about one thousand men, women and children in the 1790s.
The Spanish, Mexicans and Americans all waged wars of extermination against this proud and fierce people. Today the remaining Mescaleros possess a small reservation in southern New Mexico.
CRRDIT: Photo by A. Frank Randall, Smithsonian, NAA: 2491-a.
Experimental Lacoste brake system applied to the battleship USS Indiana (BB-1), April 1910.
The brakes swung out from amidship-like wings and were effective, but the Navy determined they slowed the ship's overall speed and were too difficult to maintain.