First Person, Airborne
THE GRIZZLE-ALLISON FAMILY FARMS, where the three sons grew up, were situated in eastern New Mexico, about 30 miles south of Roswell, a city of about 40,000 people in the 1940s, near the small town of…
Read More
Category: History
A Tribute to the Flying Paperboy
CHARLES “PAPPY” HARRIS WAS 10 years old when Frank Kindel’s two-seater Piper Cub took flight on May 31, 1964, near Queen, in southeastern New Mexico’s Guadalupe Mountains. “We knew what way he took…
Read More
Written on the Landscape
IN ENCOUNTERING ROCK ART, the initial impact is the image itself. How do we understand the meaning behind the diverse life forms and abstract designs painted and carved throughout the arid landscapes…
Read More
On the Lookout
A STATUE OF LUCIEN B. MAXWELL—seated, rifle across his legs—keeps watch over the northwest corner of Cimarrón Park. One of the largest contiguous landowners in United States history, Maxwell once…
Read More
How Roswell Got a Moon Rock
A SMALL HUNK OF ROCK from the moon’s Taurus–Littrow Valley sits on display at the Roswell Museum as a tribute to Robert H. Goddard’s early work in rocket propulsion. A New England native, Goddard…
Read More
Route 66 Motels Lost to History
THEIR NEON SIGNS BLAZED a trail for weary Route 66 travelers for decades, promising a clean room in an auto court with modern amenities like air-conditioning and hot and cold running water. While many…
Read More
The Story Behind the Magic Mural
ELLIS TANNER WANTED TO INSPIRE the generations of Navajo youth who have been coming into his Gallup store since it opened in 1967. “I wanted to put positive role models around my entire trading…
Read More
Branded with History
ON THE SOUTH AND WEST DOORS of the 1892 Eddy County Courthouse, in Carlsbad, 211 cattle brands recognize ranches across southeast New Mexico and other parts of the U.S. Southwest. “They’re definitely…
Read More
What We're Reading: The Lost Tomb
IN 1986, DOUGLAS PRESTON drove from New York City to Santa Fe. There, he settled into a writing career that included contributions to New Mexico Magazine. His 1995 New Yorker article, “The Mystery of…
Read More
Add Enchantment to Your Holiday Decor
Light it up. The tiny mining town of Madrid has an outsize reputation for lighting the night. In the early 1900s, the town enjoyed free electricity supplied by the coal mining companies, which allowed…
Read More