Albuquerque Progress

Albuquerque Progress magazine was published from 1934 to 1965. It is helpful for researching business histories, house histories, and urban development..

The Project

The Digitization Project

We hope that publishing this guide and index will increase access to Albuquerque Progress for local history researchers. Special Collections library staff worked with colleagues from UNM Library’s Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication to make copies of all 297 issues of Albuquerque Progress available through NM Digital Collections.

Funding for the project was provided by a grant from the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board. We are also indebted to  the Friends of the Public Library and the Albuquerque Public Library Foundation for administrative and financial assistance, and to Albuquerque Historical Society and Historic Albuquerque, Inc., for their support.

New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board logoNational Archives Logo

4. Albuquerque Progress Magazine

What Was Albuquerque Progress?

Albuquerque Progress was published by Albuquerque National Bank from 1934 to 1965. During this period, the city's population grew from approximately 30,000 to over 200,000 people. Albuquerque Progress was designed to record Albuquerque's growth and to promote the city to potential investors and residents. The magazine’s black and white photos are often the best visual record we can locate of individual structures at the time they were first built.

In addition to documenting building permits, new businesses, renovation and infrastructure projects (e.g., Route 66), Albuquerque Progress published topical issues. Issues devoted to the State Fair, winter sports, Boys Ranch, Albuquerque churches, local industries and manufacturers provide state-of-the-city snapshots of the era.

How Can I Use Albuquerque Progress?

The index below is a searchable .pdf that points researchers to organizations, addresses, and individuals featured in the 297 issues that were published before the magazine's name and focus changed to reflect New Mexico Progress instead. Use the index to identify the issue you would like to view.

To view an issue of Albuquerque Progress online, select the appropriate date range from the menu, then click on the date for the issue. This will take you to the correct issue via New Mexico Digital Collections.

Bound copies of the print issues for the entire run of Albuquerque Progress are available at both Special Collections and the Genealogy Center.

Indexes

Albuquerque Progress Index (First edition, June 2016)

Guide to Using This Index:

This edition of the index includes more than 17,900 lines of data in 391 pages. The search tool for the .pdf document enables researchers to maneuver through multiple entries over multiple issues. Using the index electronically avoids some of the name authority issues we hope to resolve in later editions. For instance, the developer Charles E. McDuffie appears as both a personal and a company name. A search on McDuffie finds entries under both headings.

Labeling individual issues and pages: Publication frequency for Albuquerque Progress varied, and in its early years, volume and issue numbers were inconsistently applied. We have chosen to identify each issue using a yyyy-mm or, where multiple months were covered, yyyy-mm,mm format. The April 1940 issue is thus labeled 1940-04. Because text and images frequently appeared on the cover, the indexing begins with the cover of each issue as page 1.

Building Permits: Building Permits have been entered individually where possible, but the sheer volume of these entries and the time limit for the grant means that there is more data to be captured for later editions of the index. As the pace of the city’s growth increased, Albuquerque Progress stopped listing this information. If a researcher is unable to locate a specific address built between 1934 and 1957, it is worthwhile to ask a Special Collections staff member for additional assistance.

Color Codes within the Albuquerque Progress index
Yellow Yellow indicates the entry needs verification or correction.
Green Green indicates an image, usually a photo, accompanies the entry.
Blue Blue indicates that a map accompanies the entry.
Red Red indicates that multiple building permits are listed.