Francisco Bojorquez: The Cowboy Sheriff of Sierra County

Saturday, April 13, 3:00 p.m., at the Hillsboro Community Center

Presentation by Karl W. Laumbach

Sponsored by the Hillsboro Historical Society

Francisco Bojorquez (l) with Hillsboro banker Gillespie

Francisco Bojorquez is a fading legend in the memories of old timers in Sierra County. Born in California, the son of Spanish émigrés, Bojorquez was raised in Sonora where he learned the skills of a vaquero. 

Arriving in Sierra County in the 1880s, herapidly established himself as a top hand on local ranches and in regional "cowboy contests," where he pitted his roping and riding skills against the best cowboys in the Southwest. 

The respect that made him foreman on large ranches employing Texas cowboys also propelled him into political office as county commissioner, state representative and finally, county sheriff. 

Karl Laumbach, a graduate of New Mexico State University, spent nine years directing projects for the NMSU archaeology program before joining Human Systems Research, Inc., in 1983, where he currently serves as Associate Director and Principal Investigator for diverse projects.  Among his varied research interests are northeastern New Mexico land grants, the pueblo archaeology of southern New Mexico, and the history and 

archaeology of the Apache.

Election Day -- 100 Years Ago

These election delegates posed for this photograph in Hillsboro in 1910.  Missing are the smiles. The men look stern, serious. Elections were and are serious, and the citizens around Hillsboro participated in their share of elections, and produced politicos that shaped the state, like Nicholas Galles and Edward Tittmann. Note the 46-star flag. The New Mexico and Arizona territories were about to enter the Union.  Though not a home-grown Sierra County resident, William "Bull" Andrews, who lived at Andrews, New Mexico, a few miles northeast of Hillsboro, was New Mexico's territorial delegate to Congress in 1910. Andrews was "bullish" in pushing statehood with his Pennsylvanian connections to Senator Matt Quay, for whom Quay County is named.