Events

Join us for the fourth installment of our “Faces and Places of the Chihuahuan Desert” Lecture Series! Our latest is led by Dr. Jeffrey P. Shepherd, UTEP Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History.

Free event, no RSVP required. Join us after the talk for Q&A and refreshments

Long an iconic landmark of the region, the Guadalupe Mountains have shaped the lives and cultures of those who lived in or passed through the Southwest Borderlands. In this book talk, Jeffrey P. Shepherd narrates a colorful history of one of the most unlikely National Parks in the United States. Shepherd situates the Mountains and National Park in the epic tales of Spanish exploration, Westward expansion, Native survival, frontier conflict, immigrant settlement, the conservation movement, early tourism, cattle ranching, and regional economic development. In the early twenty-first century, as Americans cope with climate change, polarized political rhetoric, and suburban sprawl, public spaces such as the Guadalupe Mountains National Park remind us about our ties to nature and our historical relationships with the environment.

Dr. Jeffrey P. Shepherd joined the Department of History at UTEP in 2002, after receiving his Ph.D. from Arizona State University. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in U.S., Indigenous, Borderlands, Western, Environmental, and Public History. Shepherd is presently an Associate Professor and, since fall 2019, the Chair of the Department of History.