Point of Rocks was a major landmark along the Santa Fe Trail in Jicarilla Apache country. Near here, the party of Santa Fe merchant J.W. White was attacked in 1849, and Kit Carson was part of the military party organized to rescue White's wife and daughter. The Dorsey Mansion, built by controversial Arkansas Senator Stephen W. Dorsey in the late 1870's and early 1880's, was a part log and part stone mansion that once served as a center of social life in the southwest and, since its completion, has been a unique architectural feature in New Mexico.