New gate will prevent further damage to graves in historic cemetery

A new gate has been installed inside an historic Las Cruces cemetery to protect graves that in some cases are more than 160 years old.

St. Genevieve’s Catholic Church Facility and Cemetery Manager Albert Carrasco and volunteer José Tapia and finished installing the red metal gate Monday morning, Aug. 21, inside San Jose Cemetery, 100 N. Espina St., next door to the church. The new gate, which will be kept locked, was installed to keep visitors from driving into the historic portion of the cemetery, on its west side, said long-time church volunteer Rosemary Leyva.

“We’re trying to protect it from further damage,” said Leyva, who, with Tapia, is leading a project now in its eighth year to map all the graves in the eight-acre cemetery. The Doña Ana County Historical Society (DACHS) is partnering with St. Genevieve’s on the project and paid for the new gate and the materials to install them, said DACHS member Sally Kading.

The gate will keep vehicles from damaging marked and unmarked graves, some of which are sinking, Levya said.

Grave subsidence (sinking) is a natural process that occurs in all cemeteries as time, weather and other factors cause soil to settle, and as very old coffins collapse.

There are almost 3,400 graves in the western half of San Jose Cemetery, Leyva said. The earliest burial dates to July 4, 1859, as Magdalena Cordero, age 12, was interred, Leyva said.

Because of vagrants, the cemetery is kept locked, Leyva said. Anyone who wants to visit a grave is asked to park in the parking lot on Espina Street, immediately to the east of the cemetery and walk into the cemetery through its main gate on the Espina Street side, she said. Accommodation will be made for people in wheelchairs and have other special needs, Levya said.

To arrange a visit to a grave, call St. Genevieve’s at 575-524-9649, and someone will unlock the cemetery gates. Church office hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday and 9 a.m.-noon on Saturday.

Cemetery history

The cemetery is the final resting place of many of Las Cruces’ earliest family members, along with members of the Territorial militia, the California Column and soldiers who fought in the Civil War, the Indian Wars of the late 19th century, the Spanish-American War (one of Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders), World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

In the older section of the cemetery, you will find the Amador family tomb, including the grave of Martín Amador, who built the historic Amador Hotel in the 1870s and was one of Las Cruces’ earliest settlers. Near the original entrance to the cemetery on Organ Avenue and Manzanita Street are the graves of the Nestor Armijo family. Nestor and his wife, Josefa, moved to Las Cruces in the late 1850s. He became a successful businessman and built the building that is today the Armijo House.

Also buried in San Jose Cemetery are colorful figures from Las Cruces’ storied past like soldier, justice of the peace and Desert Springs resort developer Eugene Van Patten (1839-1926); Adolph Lea ((1825-1903), whose homestead at Fort Selden became Leasburg; former priest, businessman and politician Theodore Rouault ((1851-1940); and St. Genevieve Church pastor from 1878-80 and again in 1902 Reverend Father Andres Eschallier (1844-1922).

Other prominent locals buried in the cemetery include landowner and freighter Barbaro Lucero, French settler Francisco Carbonniere, and spiritual leaders of the Piro-Manso-Tiwa tribe Vicente Roybal Jr and Edward Roybal, according to Las Esperanzas, Inc., the Mesquite Street and Original Town Site Historic District.

There is also at least one Jewish grave in the cemetery, which is inscribed in Hebrew and includes the Star of David.