Walk through Time on Scenic Sunday

You have driven across Scenic Drive numerous times. Now that Scenic Sundays is year round, you may have walked, run or bicycled across the drive on a Sunday morning from 6 until 11 when it is traffic-free. All the time that you have gone over Scenic Drive did you know that there is rock there that is over one billion years old? There are very, very old fossils there (corals, algae, gatropods, cepahlopods and ammonoids) as well as caves now filled with and cemented by caliche. The same faulting and folding and fracturing that formed the mountains also formed caves. Could one of those caves have been the site of the Lost Padre Mine just beneath Scenic Drive?

In 1920, El Paso chain gangs excavated more than 26,000 cubic yards of solid rock, 5,800 cubic yards of loose rock and 3,500 cubic yards of caliche to construct Scenic Drive. The drill holes and blast marks from the explosives are still visible.

On Sunday, August 23, from 8 to 10 you can learn more about the rich geological, natural and modern histories of El Paso by taking a "Walk through Time". Event organizers, Eric Kappus and Jim Tolbert, will be hosting historians Leon Metz and Fred Morales, UTEP geologist Dr. Phil Goodell and paleontologist, Dave Lemone, along with Master Naturalists, members of the Native Plant Society and Future Educators of Math and Science. The Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition will be on hand with information about conservation and preserving Castner Range. The event is sponsored by the City of El Paso District 2 (Susie Byrd Representative), the Newman Park Neighborhood Association, El Paso Water Utilities/Public Service Board, UTEP Department of Geological Sciences, Celebration of Our Mountains, Keep El Paso Beautiful and Texas Master Naturalists.

The event is free and traffic free.

Click on the image below to enlarge for map and program times.