Although the Boyd Family owned Dripping Springs Resort, what is now the Cox Ranch headquarters was never owned by them.  An Indian, Simon Bocan, homesteaded near La Cueva in the 1930's, but the ranch proper was bought by Franklin Hayner from a Mr. Ascartes in the late 1930's.  The Haynors owned a lumber yard in Las Cruces and used the ranch mostly as a "weekend place."  Most of the out builidings at the ranch headquarters were built by the Hayners, who was also added the swimming pool and the landing strip.

Scientists currently document the birth of the Earth at 4.6 billion years ago.  The oldest rock in New Mexico are around 2 billion years old and were formed during the Pre Cambrian Era of the Earth's history.  This was a time of mountain building, turbulant seas, and volcanic activity followed by periods of intense erosion that left only the roots of the former mountains.  These roots were then covered by masses of magma from the Earth's core that slowly cooled into beds of pinkish granite crossed by coarse pegmatite veins.  Again, these mountains wore down and Southern New Mexico lay featureless for millions of years.

Dripping Springs Resort was originally built by Colonel Eugene Van Patten in the 1870's.  A native of new York State, Van Patten came to Mesilla at the invitation of his uncle, John Butterfield, whoe operated the Butterfield Stage Line.  Van Patten worked at the Picacho Stage Station and probably elsewhere after the stage line ceased operations in the Las Cruces area in 1861.  During the Civil War, he joined the Confederacy and saw action in the Battle of Glorieta Pass near Santa Fe.