SCENE OF BATTLE A HISTORIC SPOT.
"FORT SUMTER" OF MEXICO IS NOW DESERTED.
Old Carrizal on Wagon Trail of
Doniphan's Days was Used by
Juarez as Headquarters and Later
on by Orozco in His Ill-fated
Revolution.
BY NORMAN WALKER.
[BY DIRECT WIRE -- EXCLUSIVE DISPATCH]
EL PASO, June 21. - No more historic spot could have been picked for the "Fort Sumter" of the Mexican war of 1916 - if it develops into a war - than is Carrizal Viejo (Old Carrizal) on the Mexico City wagon trail of Donipban's days.
Eighty-three miles south of Juarez is Villa Ahumada, a squat adobe town with a two-story mill. Three leagues southwest from Villa Ahumada on a gravelly desert road is Carrizal with its old church, its palacio municipal and the modest little home where Benito Juarez made his headquarters when flghting the French.
Bats worship on the chancel rail of the old church at Carrizal. Jackrabbits have their hutches in the municipal palace and wild burros pick the bear grass which grows in the narrow streets. There is not a human inhabitant in the desert town of the Mexlcan desert.
IN DAYS OF OROZCO.
The last time the old town was occupied was when Gen. Pascual Orozco sought refuge there at the end of his ill-fated revolution. He had been carried there in a pack saddle between two horses and was sick on a pile of cowh1des in the same little house where Juarez made his home in 1864. Orozco had been missing for eight mwnths just as Villa has been missing. I was assigned to the task of flnding him. Through Federal and rebel lines I made the trip, drove out to Carrlzal and had my plcture snapped with Orozco to prove that he was still alive. I spent the day and night with Orozco, got his statement on the possibilities of peace under Huerta and slept with him In the little chapel.
Carrizal is one long lonesome street flanked by water-washed adobes and cactus-grown streets. At one time it was the most prosperous town in the northern part of Chihuahua, but when the rallroad came to Villa Ahumada the people all moved there.
Back of the town is the Carrizal spring which gave the town its name and where the water for domestic uses was obtained when the town was occupied. The water from this spring flows through the town and empties into a ditch to the west of the town where it is believed the parley which preceded the clash occurred.
WHERE JUAREZ PRAYED.
In the little house where Benito Juarez made his headquarters a rude cross of stones has been set up by the natlves to mark the place where the "Lincoln of Mexico" made his temporary quarters. In the abandoned quarters there is also a shrine erected to Juarez. There I saw Gen. Orozco kneel in spite of his illness and say his prayers for the first time in a church during the seven months that he had been in hiding in the Mulas Mountains of Northeastern Mexico.