Pisacah - A Place of Plenty is a hard cover, 8 1/2 x 11 inch, 352 page book containing 97 photographs, eight maps and illustrations, an appendix, end notes and index. The story begins with a brief glimpse of the prehistoric Pueblo Indians who lived on the eastern slopes of the Sacramento Mountains in south central New Mexico, circa 1150-1300 A.D., and centers on the lives of the people who followed them into the area. Although the history of the Mescalero Apache Indians and the Lincoln County War have been preserved by others, a brief summary of both have been included to set the stage for the arrival of the homesteaders, cattle barons and sawmill operators who were drawn to the primary water sources during the aftermath of the Lincoln County War. The story concludes with statehood in 1912.

Water, the lack of it, the contentions over it, and the power it brought to those in control of it, provides the focus of this narration. The book provides an insight into how the homestead laws, water priority rights and beneficial usage laws, water legislation enacted by the Territorial Assembly, formation of the irrigation companies, law suits generated to settle disputed water rights and usage, and the gradual erosion the open range policy, affected the lives of those who struggled to make a life for themselves in a land where water was, and continues to be, in short supply.

In writing this book the author has utilized memoirs written by her grandmother, Angie Cleve, random notes and records kept by her grandfather, Urban Bernard Cleve, and other family members, newspaper clippings and taped interviews with descendants of the participants portrayed. Civic officials, public records, and numerous books also contributed to the information presented.

Angie Hendrix Cleve moved into the Peñasco Valley with her family in 1887 at the age of eleven, married at seventeen and was widowed at thirty five. After the untimely death of her husband in 1913, she managed her family’s C X Ranch, Cottonwood Farm and Elk Store. She was appointed deputy game warden for her area, served as a charter member of the governing board of the local Rural Electrical Association for ten years, and acted as the postmistress of the Elk Post Office for thirty-three years. Her brother-in-law, Thomas C. Tillotson was one of the original homesteaders. Her husband, Urban Bernard Cleve, arrived in 1885 to work for the Champion Cattle Company on their Peñasco Valley Ranch. His cousin, James Fielding Hinkle, became the president of the cattle company during the late 1890’s, mayor of Roswell, New Mexico in 1905, and was elected governor of the state in 1923.

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