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LAS CRUCES - On the cool morning of April Fools' Day in 1920, the roughly 150 students of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts gathered at the base of Tortugas Mountain and began mixing the lime - for the whitewash.
For the rest of the day, they passed buckets full of the stuff to each other up a half-mile of rocky slope, crafting a crude, 100-foot letter "A" on the west side of the mountain.
When it was done, everyone seemed pleased with the result.
"We now have a large 'A' which can be seen for miles in every direction," the editors of the student newspaper the Round Up wrote. "It will be the duty of the incoming freshmen to keep the 'A' painted, and is thus handed down a tradition."
Every year since, groups of Aggies have maintained that tradition every year, though it's been generations since the entire student population took part.
Yet in its early years, the "A" served to identify Las Cruces as a college town, and to bring a genuine sense of school pride to the fledgling state college campus.
'A' is for Aggies
No one is sure exactly who first proposed the idea, but it seems to have been a student-driven initiative that emulated other colleges that had marked a nearby mountain, including the School of Mines in Socorro, the University of Arizona in Tucson, also an "A" Mountain, and the School of Mines in El Paso.
For years, Tortugas Mountain was a popular place for hiking and picnics. Early botany classes studied an array of
In February 1920, the Rio Grande Republican reported that miner Alfred Roos and his 18-man crew were working a "valuable vein of high grade fluorspar in Tortugas Mountain."
And since at least the turn of the century, the residents of Tortugas had celebrated their annual pilgrimage from the village to the mountain culminating in the lighting of bonfires on the mountainside.
But to students at the Ag College, its west side seemed the perfect marquee.
A 'permanent' A
The first "A" the students made in 1920 was reportedly a little crude, and was "redrawn" the next year.
"The letter inscribed this year probably will be permanent, it being more accurately surveyed than last year, and looks very similar to the football monogram worn by the lettermen," the Round Up reported April 1921.
Many rocks had to be moved for the new "A," as well as hundreds of gallons of fresh paint applied, but apparently it was worth the effort.
"It was so laid out that it looks much better from the college and surrounding country than the letter of last year, and is in direct line over Hadley Hall with the road from Mesilla Park to the horseshoe," according to the Round Up.
So important was the new connection with Tortugas Mountain that students used lava rock taken from the mountain in 1924 when they built the arched gateway to their beloved Miller Field (where Skeen Hall now sits).
By the early 1920s, the local newspapers were proclaiming the painting of "A" Mountain a "tradition."
The Class of 1922 laid down the rules that would carry on for decades: freshmen, often called "fish," were to wear green skullcaps emblazoned with the Aggie "A" the week prior to "A Day," and were responsible for cleaning the whitewash containers, as well as carrying them, half-filled up to the "A."
The upperclassmen did the actual spreading of the whitewash. Accounts vary, some depicting mild hazing by upperclassmen.
But overall, the activity was seen for years as a big local event, offering group bonding and pride in the finished product. Las Cruces also got into the act, with farmers and businesses regularly donating materials to the effort.
Maintaining tradition
By the 1950s the sororities and fraternities had begun to take a larger role in organizing the "A" Day festivities, but it still brought out a large percentage of the school, a fair number of whom were locals who'd grown up with the big "A."
Las Cruces native Donald Wunsch, now 75, of Albuquerque, said he was a junior in the fall of 1956 when the picture of him and three of his classmates and fellow Las Crucens Molly Williams, Jack Mayfield and Ernest Poeter was taken dumping paint on the "A."
Wunsch recalls the picture was basically staged, with them borrowing the green skullcaps from some freshmen. He has fond memories of the annual event.
"That was a fairly big thing to go up there and paint the 'A' on the mountain. Everybody thought it was the fun thing to do," Wunsch recalled.
Wunsch said he has enjoyed seeing the "A" when he's returned here, especially during Homecoming, when the "A" was lit up. But he recognizes the days are in the past when most of the school turned out.
"It was a much smaller school, very conservative, most of us were from Las Cruces.
"It was just the tradition that went along with it. Nowadays, I don't think you'd get anybody to buy into wearing green caps and doing it the way we did then. But people thought it was fun to be part of the tradition," Wunsch said.
Indeed the tradition did wane in the 1970s and 1980s, at least compared to the early years that included the whole student body. The college Greek community took up the duty, which they continue now during Greek Week every April.
Inter-Fraternity Council President Taylor Bowman said the task is just one of many community projects completed by fraternities and sororities during Greek Week.
"Sure, there's that pride in doing it. I've heard people brag a little. Everyone knows about 'A' Mountain, if you've been here a day," Bowman said, though he acknowledges it is nothing like the group effort it was years ago.
It's also nowhere near the drudgery it used to be, with easy access to the base of the "A" coming from an access road that also leads to various broadcast and transmission towers, as well as an astronomical observatory that NMSU opened in the mid-1960s.
Christopher Schurtz is a freelance writer and can be reached at cschurtz@zianet.com.
