The Story Behind Cooney’s Tomb
BESIDE THE TRICKLING WATERS of Mineral Creek in the Gila National Forest, a man’s body has rested inside a massive granite boulder since 1880. The odd gravesite reveals the stakes of the yearlong…
Read More
Tag: Backstory
Take the Road to Whatville
JUST FIVE MINUTES UP the road from the mountain village of Angel Fire’s only stoplight sits Whatville, a 10-acre art installation and events space. Created by Ray Renfroe, the whimsical landscape is a…
Read More
Bob Wills Found a Melody in Roy
THE BITTERSWEET WHINE of Bob Wills’s fiddle is a fitting soundtrack for the high lonesome country of the eastern plains. In the village of Roy, the King of Western Swing’s face greets motorists from…
Read More
The Heroes of Bataan
ACROSS THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT, memorials honor New Mexicans who survived or died in the 1942 Battle of Bataan, the subsequent death march, and prisoner-of-war camps in the Philippines during World…
Read More
Echoes in Carson National Forest
ABOUT 20 MINUTES NORTH OF ABIQUIÚ, in the Carson National Forest, Echo Amphitheater creates the clearest echoes I’ve ever heard. My daughter’s voice ricochets across the concave wall of pink and…
Read More
Rest Easy, Dennis Hopper
TOWARD THE CENTER of a small cemetery in Ranchos de Taos, among rocks and desert scrub, a weathered wooden cross marks the grave of Dennis Hopper. Bandanas, motorcycle patches, and beads flutter from…
Read More
Walter White Lives On in Albuquerque
WHEN ONE OF THE CREEPIEST early sequences in Vince Gilligan’s recent Apple TV series, Pluribus, unfolds in the parking lot of an Albuquerque strip mall, many local viewers instantly recognized actress…
Read More
Lost Oasis in the Organ Mountains
TUCKED INTO THE rugged folds of the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces, crumbling stone walls mark the ghostly remnants of the Van Patten Mountain Camp—once an oasis where visitors escaped the desert…
Read More
The Deming Triangles Explained
ABOUT 20 MILES southeast of Deming, the desert floor opens into a shallow, rock-lined crater, bordered by six concrete lines and a pair of triangular slabs. A nearby marker suggests an otherworldly…
Read More
Visit the Walt Longmire Office
ON THE HISTORIC PLAZA of the original Las Vegas, a wood-and-glass door marked as the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department arrests visitors. For devotees of Longmire, the A&E crime drama based on Craig…
Read More