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Cimarron
was once known as the "Cowboy capital of the world". Some of the old
west's most famous names, such as
Kit Carson
and "Buffalo
Bill" Cody lived there. A quote from the Las Vegas Gazette
illustrates how lawless
Cimarron
was. "Everything is quiet in
Cimarron.
Nobody has been killed in 3 days."
Tens of thousands of bats
live in the Carlsbad Caverns. The largest chamber of Carlsbad Caverns is
more than 10 football fields long and about 22 stories high.
The City of Truth or
Consequences was once called Hot Springs. In 1950 the town changed its
name to the title of a popular radio quiz program.
The town of
Gallup calls
itself the "Indian
Capital of the World" and serves as a trading center for more than 20
different
Indian
groups. Every August it is the site of the Inter-Tribal
Indian
Ceremonial
Native
Americans have been living in
New Mexico
for some twenty thousand years. The Pueblo, Apache, Comanche,
Navajo, and
Ute peoples were in the
New Mexico
region when Spanish settlers arrived in the 1600s.
Grants,
New Mexico
is known as the "Uranium capital of the world," having produced the bulk
of the nation's uranium supply during the post-World War II and Cold War
era.
On the same desert
grounds where today's space age missiles are tested, ten-thousand-year-old
arrowheads have been found.
Wheeler Peak is New
Mexico’s highest point at more than 13,000 feet.
Believe it or not,
New Mexico
has a two designated State Vegetables - Chile and frijoles. That
being said, it comes as no surprise that
New Mexico
also has an officially designated State Question -- ---"Red or green?"
(referring to chile preference.)
To test the latest
rockets White Sands Missile Range was created on the same land where the
first atom bomb had been exploded.
In 1861-62, during the
Confederate Occupation, Mesilla,
New Mexico
was the capital of Arizona Territory.
The only town in the US
to ever be invaded by a foreign army is Columbus by Mexico's Pancho Villa.
The Santo Domingo Mission
between
Albuquerque and
Santa Fe was
built fifteen years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
The only surviving
settlement of the "Seven Cities of Cibola” is the Zuni Pueblo.
Albuquerque
was once part of the confederacy.
Santa Fe is
the oldest state capitol in the nation.
The first area in the
world to be designated as wilderness area was in the Gila Mountains of
New Mexico
.
Silver City is remembered
as the boyhood home of William Bonney, who gained notoriety as
Billy the Kid.
The University of
New Mexico's
Institute of Meteoritics was the first of its kind in the world.
The first road to be
established by Europeans in what is now the United States was the El
Camino Real (the Royal Highway) that stretched from
Santa Fe to
Mexico City. First used primarily as a trade route, it began to
serve travelers about 1581 and portions of it still exist today.
Sierra Grande, situated
about 10 miles southeast of Folsom in Union County, is the largest single
mountain in the United States. It is 40 miles around the base and covers
50 square miles, with an altitude of 8,720 feet. It is an dormant volcano.
New Mexico's
history is filled with
Wild West
characters. Some who made their homes here, at least for a time,
were Clay
Allison,
Buffalo Bill Cody,
Black
Jack Ketchum,
Billy the Kid,
Doc Holliday,
and Pat
Garrett.
On
the corner of
Route 66
and First Street in
Tucumcari
is a Texaco Station that is the only service station to have operated
continuously through the
Route 66
era to the present.
Inscription Rock, also
known as El Morro, is a great monolith of sandstone, southwest of
Grants, on
which everyone from
Indians
and conquistadors to missionaries and outlaws have carved their names.
Besides being a hideout for Butch Cassidy and
the Wild Bunch, Whitewater Canyon served as a sanctuary for what
Indian
Chief Geronimo.
Lucien Maxwell
was the largest single landowner in the western hemisphere. On January 28,
1870, Maxwell
sold almost 2,000,000 acres of land to a group of
Colorado
investors fronting for an English company for $1,350,000.
The town of
Santa Rosa has 15 separate lakes and streams.
Ft. Union in Mora County was at one time the largest fort west of the
Mississippi.
Clayton used to be the smallest town in the
world with a Rotary Club. In 1916, several civic leaders decided Clayton
needed one. They were told Clayton was too small to have a Rotary Club.
The wannabe Rotarians chartered a railroad passenger car, crashed the 1916
Rotary convention in San Francisco and demanded to be let in. They charmed
the real delegates, who passed a special resolution allowing Clayton to
become Rotary Club #1617.
The first and only surviving Carnegie Library in
New Mexico
is located in
Las Vegas.
New Mexico
State officials ordered 400 words of "sexually explicit material" to be
cut from Romeo and Juliet.
Tucumcari's
Tee Pee Curios is the last curio store on
Route 66
between
Albuquerque and
Amarillo.
Compiled and
edited by
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, updated July,
2010.
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