NMPedia

Edward Paul Abbey, AKA: Ed Abbey, Cactus Ed. (1927-1989) Earned Masters and Ph. D. in Philosophy at UNM. Worked as a forest ranger and fire lookout, resulting in his popular book Desert Solitaire which eulogized the Southwest. His book The Monkey Wrench Gang was adopted as a manifesto by some wilderness protection activists. Wrote 2 books set in New Mexico: The Brave Cowboy, made into the 1956 movie Lonely Are The Brave shot around Albuquerque, and Fire on the Mountain, inspired by rancher John Prather's resistance to having his land become part of the White Sands Missile Range.

A New Mexico State Scenic Byway, linking the Camino Real Scenic Byway with the Sal Missions Trail. The route follows NM 47 east from Belen, then north along NM 60, passing the Sevilleta Wildlife Refuge and then on to the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument which includes Gran Quivira and Quarai ruins, and the Abo Pueblo ruins that give the Trail its name.

Organization "to awaken, enliven, nurture and sustain the natural love of learning in people of all ages." The Academy is now housed in Seton Castle, the home built by naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton on an estate outside of Santa Fe, which building the Academy acquired in 2003. The Academy offers a variety of courses and workshops.

Irrigation canal systems still common throughout New Mexico, directing water from streams or springs through the community. Traditionally, acequias are maintained by the community as a whole, with all those drawing from the supply required to provide labor to clean and maintain the ditch system. Oversight of the system is the responsibility of the mayordomo, the "ditch boss", an important position involving scheduling of access and adjudication over usage disputes. In the classic New Mexico village system the acequia was and is a symbol of practical and metaphorical community identity; the sharing of the precious resource identifies the community boundaries, ditch banks often serve as footpaths, and the annual spring ditch cleaning is a social event.

See State of Acoma

Wry name given to a cottonwood tree growing atop the mesa on which Acoma Pueblo is built. As it is the only tree on the mesa - which is basically otherwise nonvegetated - the tree is very distinctive. Often photographed by tourists.

See The Lost Adams Diggings

(1897-1966) Painter and printmaker who moved to New Mexico in 1924. Part of the Taos Society of Artists. Noted for portraits of Hispanics, and landscape paintings.

AKA: John Augustiani, Juan Maria Agostini, John Mary Justiniani, Juan Bautista Agustiniani, Giovanni Agostini, Giovanni Maria Agostianini, Giovanni Maria Deagostini, Agostini-Justiniani, Marie Agustine, Matteo Boccalini, El Solitario, El Padre Solitario, El Padre Sanador, El Padre Curandero, El Hermitano, El Ermitano, Father Francesco, Hermit of La Cueva. "The Hermit of New Mexico", who occupied a cave/hut in San Miguel County around the end of the Civil War and gained a wide reputation as a holy man and healer, though he himself denied any healing ability. Little is known for sure about his background, and there are many different versions of legends about him; even the circumstances of his death are unclear. Hermit's Peak near Las Vegas is named for his residency there. Also known as "The Hermit of La Cueva", after he later took up residence in a cave between La Mesilla (near Las Cruces) and Juarez Mexico, near which cave he was later reported as found murdered. Sometimes confused with Francis Schlatter.

See New Mexico State University

Completed in 1898 as a project of the El Paso and Northeastern Railway, providing access from Alamogordo into the Sacramento Mountains. The timber in the mountains provided lumber for, among other things, further expansion of the EP&NR. The line also serviced the Lodge at Cloudcroft. The rail line climbed almost 5,000 feet over 32 miles, earning it the nickname "The Cloud-Climbing Railroad". Today the right of way is used for several stretches of "rail trails", allowing hikers recreational access to the picturesque area.

See Alamogordo Primate Facility

Supported by the National Institutes of Health, located at Holloman Air Force Base, managed for a time by New Mexico State University. Created in the 1950s as an adjunct to space and aeronautical research, the program began with 65 chimpanzees but grew to many more. The Air Force ended chimpanzee research in 1970 and the chimp population was leased to laboratories for toxicology and cosmetics testing. After the NIH retired chimps from research in 2015 some were moved to sanctuaries but others, some aged over 60, remained as too frail to move. The facility garnered national attention.

30 foot tall steel and cement sculpture of an opening pistachio adjacent to McGinn's PistachioLand near Alamogordo, built by local craftsman Ernest Martinez. The sculpture was commissioned by Timothy McGinn in memory of his father Thomas McGinn. The novelty sculpture has become a tourist attraction.

AKA: Albuquerque Biological Park. City-run facilities including the Albuquerque BioPark Zoo, Botanic Garden, Tingley Beach and Aquarium.
Albuquerque BioPark website

AKA: Railyards, Railroad Yards, Rail Shop, Railroad Shops, Railway Shops, Albuquerque Locomotive Repair Shops. Regional maintenance and repair facility for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, located in the Barelas district of Albuquerque. (The yard location was originally to be Bernalillo, but high asking price for the land there resulted in the shift to Albuquerque.) Established in 1880 at First and Central and expanding five miles out to a tie-treatment plant, the Yards fostered rapid population growth in the area and at one point between a third and a half of Albuquerque's working men were employed with the Yards. The largest such facility in the Southwest, it ran 24/7 but began to decline after dieselization of rail equipment. Abandoned for decades, the rail shops have recently seen use as a filming location, and in 1997 the Wheels Museum incorporated to eventually repurpose the site and buildings as a museum of transportation. Book: Overhaul: A social history of the Albuquerque Locomotive Repair Shops by Flint & Flint.

In English, Federal Land Grant Alliance; AKA: Alianza de Pueblos y Pobladores, Alianza de Pueblos Libres, La Alianza. Organization led by Reies Lopez Tijerina in the 1960s, to draw attention to land grant injustices in northern New Mexico. In October 1966 the Alliance occupied Echo Theater Park of the Carson National Forest, declaring it to be the Republic of San Joaquin, an event that drew national attention. Further attention was gained when La Alianza staged an armed raid on the Tierra Amarilla County Courthouse, which action resulted in the calling out of the National Guard to pursue Alianza members who afterward fled to the mountains.

17-minute film that emerged in the 1990s purporting to show an autopsy being performed on an alien body, with the suggestion that the corpse had been retrieved from the 1947 Roswell UFO Crash. The film received popular publicity but is widely considered to be a hoax.

Formerly, the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium. Held September into October in Ruidoso, "a family-oriented, four-day festival celebrating country and western music, cowboy culture, and features a live rodeo performance". The event also hosts the Miss Rodeo New Mexico Pageant.

"The World's Richest Quarter Horse Race". Held annually on Labor Day at the Ruidoso Downs. The race has a purse of over $2 million and is "the richest race for a two-year-old of any breed in North America".

Co-founded, with Bill Gates, Microsoft Corporation; the company was created in Albuquerque in 1975, then moved to Seattle in 1979.

(AKA: R.C. Allison) (1840-1887) Robert "Clay" Allison was a sometime-rancher who gained notoriety as a gunslinger and outlaw, especially in northern New Mexico around the 1870s. He was noted for unpredictably lethal behavior, perhaps due to a head injury gained early in life. After building a reputation around Colfax County, especially in Cimarron and Elizabethtown, he relocated to Texas where he died after a ranching accident where the wheel of a wagon rolled across his neck.

Company incorporated in 1905 to develop vacant city lands in Socorro, which had been experiencing an economic slump. The company, led by Max Kirchman, sought to drill wells, construct reservoirs, and attract settlers to farm the land. Development of a sanitarium was also planned. However, a series of earthquakes in the area 1906-07 led to exaggerated accounts of damage and reduced confidence among Kirchman's East Coast supporters, and the overall plans were never realized. A small community was eventually established north of Socorro.

AKA: Albuquerque Rattlesnake Museum. In Old Town Albuquerque. Exhibit with live snakes and rattlesnake ephemera. Issues an "Official Certificate of Courage" to visitors.

Alamogordo. As part of the Toy Train Depot, a museum of scale "park ride" railroads, offering rides on a 16" narrow gauge railway through the nearby park on the Alamogordo/Alameda Park Narrow Gauge Railway.

Term, now in disfavor, for a Native American culture centered around the Four Corners region A.D. 550 - A.D. 1200. Archaeologists originally used this Navajo word meaning "Ancient Ones" or "Ancient Enemy"; the preferred term is now Ancestral Puebloans.

Native American culture centered around the Four Corners area, approximately A.D. 550 to A.D. 1200. Noted for cliff dwellings such as those at Mesa Verde. Formerly identified by archaeologists as the Anasazi culture, which term has fallen out of favor.

(1895-1975) Came to New Mexico in 1917 with tuberculosis. Journalist and politician, serving variously as Congressman and Senator. Served also as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Author of his autobiography, Outsider in the Senate (1970).

AKA: Pablita Sandoval. 1842? - March 23, 1861. "The Only Woman To Be Executed In New Mexico." Sentenced to death in Las Vegas for stabbing her lover, who would not leave his wife for her. When she was to be hanged from a tree the sheriff failed to secure her hands, and she got her hands under the noose and struggled at the end of the rope. In an attempt to complete the execution the sheriff restrained her arms and jerked her body downward. The horrified onlookers forced her to be brought down and some claimed the sentence of hanging had been carried out, but after being properly tied she was again hanged until dead.

Catron County. Retreat and study center in the Gila Wilderness. Offers "a Lifeways & Herbal School teaching nature awareness, healing & rewilding skills and a Healing Arts Health & Herbal Clinic". Encompasses a Mogollon culture archaeological site and a Wildlife Refuge and Botanical Sanctuary. Offers camping and lodge accommodations.

See Billy the Kid

(1736-1788) Led an overland expedition of a band of colonists in exploration of California; surveyed sites there which later saw missions and settlements. Served as Governor of New Mexico under Spanish rule from 1777-1787. While Governor, lead military expeditions against Comanche forces that had been raiding in the Taos area, eventually forcing them to a peace and establishing trade. An explorer as much as an administrator, his expeditions also found a route from Santa Fe to Sonora Mexico.

AKA: Haskay-bay-nay-ntayl. (1860-189?) White Mountain Apache, captured by Yumas as a boy and then freed by U.S. Army forces. As an "adopted orphan" by the Army, he became a scout and entered New Mexico with Crook's forces. After several incarcerations during Army service he turned renegade, with a variety of crimes attributed to him but seldom proven. The Kid's reputation is largely legendary, with even the details of his death being contested and crimes attributed to him long after he was reported dead. (Appropriately, the Kid's Apache name means "brave and tall and will come to a mysterious end".) The Apache Kid Wilderness in New Mexico is named for him, as is the Marvel Comics character.

Established in 1907 as the School of American Archaeology (later, the School of American Research) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. "Promotes archaeological inquiry and public understanding of the material record of the human past to foster an appreciation of diverse cultures and our shared humanity. The AIA supports archaeologists, their research and its dissemination, and the ethical practice of archaeology."

Noted New Mexico architects include Bainbridge Bunting, Bart Prince, John Gaw Meem, Mary Jane Colter, Van Dorn Hooker, Marjorie Mead Hooker, and Isaac Rapp.

See Territory of Arizona

Confederate force that in January 1862 sought to invade New Mexico and capture supply key points along the Santa Fe Trail to connect the Southwest to the Confederacy. Under the command of Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley, the Army (as part of the New Mexico Campaign) marched north from El Paso and were engaged by Union forces outside of Fort Craig, near Socorro. The Confederate forces prevailed, but rather than attack the fort directly continued to march north, where they briefly occupied Albuquerque. Outside of Albuquerque they again engaged Union forces at the Battle of Glorieta Pass; after the destruction of their supply column, the Army was forced to withdraw first to Santa Fe and then to Albuquerque. A small Union force engaged the Army in a cannon exchange there, the Battle of Albuquerque, and then again at the Battle of Peralta. With poor chance of resupply, the Army withdrew in mid-April.

U.S. force, led by Stephen W. Kearny, that featured strongly during the Mexican-American War. Originally quartered out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Army (under command of now-General Kearny) marched along the Santa Fe Trail in 1846 and took possession of Santa Fe, where a new military government of New Mexico was centered. With some of the Army left garrisoned in Santa Fe, the remainder (now bolstered by other elements, including the Mormon Battalion) proceeded to California where they had battles with Mexican forces and finally forced the ceding of California. The portion of the Army in New Mexico, under the command of Colonel Sterling Price, saw action during the Taos Revolt. (Another force called "The Army of the West", this time Confederate, would be led by Price during the American Civil War, 1862.)

Force of the Confederate Army, composed primarily from units from Arkansas and Missouri, that saw action in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee during the American Civil War. Sometimes confused with the "Army of the West" which featured strongly in the Mexican-American War, partly due to the fact that a faction of the earlier Army had been under command of Sterling Price, who led the Army of the West during the Civil War.

"This is New Mexico". Official Spanish language state song of New Mexico, selected in 1971. Written by Amadeo Lucero. The official English language state song is O Fair New Mexico; the official bilingual state song is Mi Lindo Nuevo Mexico.

(1875-1958) Julia Duncan Brown Asplund. A graduate of and instructor at the Drexel Institute School of Library Science, she arrived in Albuquerque in 1903 to organize the library at the University of New Mexico (then known as Territorial University). Moved to Santa Fe in 1909 where she pursued developing a system of travelling free libraries. For many years the only trained librarian in New Mexico, serving as a trustee of the Albuquerque and Santa Fe public libraries, the first director of the State Library Extension service, and organizer and consultant to the State Library Planning Board. First librarian for the University of New Mexico and the first woman regent of UNM. Served as the first Chairman of the State Library Commission, a position she held for 13 years. Served as Director of the State Library Agency for two terms. Member of numerous civic organizations including the New Mexico Commission on Welfare of Women and Children. A noted proponent of women's rights, when New Mexico voted in women's suffrage in 1920 Asplund was nominated for governor as part of an all-female ticket selected by the New Mexico Woman's Party.

In 1983 Atari Inc. dumped large numbers of video game cartridges and game consoles into the Alamogordo landfill. This action became a symbol of the passing of that phase of the home video game industry; uncertainty as to the details caused the event to become legendary, with some people believing it never actually happened and others wildly exaggerating the amounts of the materials. This "legend", which spread widely on the Internet, was fueled by the idea that the bulk of the material was the E.T. The Extraterrestrial game, labeled by many as "the worst game ever" and credited by some with causing the downfall of Atari. In pursuit of the truth regarding the legend and in support of the documentary film Game Over, a trench was excavated in the landfill in April 2014. Archaeologists did indeed find E.T. cartridges there, as well as a number of other titles; some of the cartridges were subsequently sold online by the town.

AKA: AT&SF, Santa Fe Railway, "The Santa Fe". Entered New Mexico in December 1878, reaching Albuquerque in April 1880. The AT&SF eventually served Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. (Despite the name, it did not actually service Santa Fe directly, eventually utilizing a spur from Lamy 18 miles away.) Influential in opening New Mexico up to tourism, especially in conjunction with the Fred Harvey Company, with colorful advertisements attracting visitors from around the world. The AT&SF was also innovative, providing amenities to travelers such as dedicated dining and observation cars. Merged in 1996 to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway.

Nickname for the city of Los Alamos.

AKA: Aubry Cut-Off, Aubry's Route, Aubry's Trail. Variant of the Santa Fe Trail, northwest of the Cimarron Cutoff, developed by trader Francis X. Aubry.

AKA: François X. Aubry, Francis X. Aubry, Frank Aubry; also "Aubrey", "Auberry". (1824-1854) Trader along the Santa Fe Trail; developed the Aubry Cutoff, a shortcut along the Trail. Noted for very fast passages along the trade routes, earning him the nickname "The Skimmer of the Plains".

(1874-1943) Photographer who worked the Mexico-New Mexico border area. Recorded the meeting of President Taft and Mexican President Diaz, and battles around Mexico. 1916-1917 did pioneer motion picture work under contract to Pancho Villa. Was the first to photograph the aftermath of Villa's raid on Columbus New Mexico

(1868-1934) Mary Hunter Austin. Prolific novelist, poet, critic, and playwright, as well as an early feminist and defender of Native American and Spanish-American rights; interacted with many New Mexican artists and authors. Visited Santa Fe at the urging of Mabel Dodge Luhan in 1918; returned to settle in 1924. Founded the Santa Fe Players, which became the Santa Fe Playhouse, in 1919. Very interested in Native American cultures and Hispanic art. Wrote one novel set in New Mexico, Starry Adventure (1931). Best known for her book The Land of Little Rain, an edition of which features photographs by Ansel Adams; collaborated with Adams on Taos Pueblo (1930). Author of a book for children, Basket Woman. Autobiography: Earth Horizon.

(1819-1891) Territorial Governor of New Mexico, 1875-1878. Named Chief Justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court in 1882, served until 1885. Governorship generally remembered as inept and corrupt. Famously used old Spanish documents for kindling in the Palace of the Governors; on another occasion he threw many such documents into the street (where they were recovered and now form the core of the Spanish Archives in the State Records Center and Archives.) During a case in Las Vegas where his life had been threatened if he served as judge, famously collected 42 firearms from those in the courtroom, some of them from the attorneys.

Aztec New Mexico. "Lets visitors experience pioneer life in the American West. Aztec’s history of human habitation goes back a thousand years, when Native Americans settled along the Animas River. ... Pioneer Village gives visitors the opportunity to revisit a community of the early American West." Offers walking tours, field trips, and seasonal events.

Ancestral Puebloan site in northern New Mexico, near the town of Aztec. (Early European explorers mistakenly dubbed the ruins as being of Aztec origin.) The structures date from the 11th to 13th centuries. Established as a National Monument in 1923.

Purported event outside of Aztec New Mexico in March 1948, sometimes referred to as "the other Roswell". The legend, involving numerous alien bodies recovered from a very large flying disc, was popularized in a 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers by journalist Frank Scully. The incident is widely considered to have been a hoax perpetrated by scam artists who were trying to sell devices claimed to be based upon alien technology; however, some researchers believe there is some truth behind the myth. The Aztec UFO symposium was held for several years as a fundraiser for the local library. The details of the "Aztec Crash" are sometimes conflated with those of "The Roswell Incident".