The Story of Smokey Bear
CREATED OVER 75 YEARS AGO as a cartoon mascot who warned, “Only you can prevent forest fires,” Smokey Bear found his living embodiment six years later—a fire-singed cub clinging to a charred tree in…
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Tag: Backstory
The Story Behind Those Huge Snakes
Above: One of the snake sculptures near Mesa del Sol in Albuquerque. Photograph courtesy of RoadsideArchitecture.com. When the City of Albuquerque hired Sites Southwest to landscape the median…
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Folk Art Fantasia
Above: Tinkertown Museum in Sandia Park. Photograph by Pat Canova / Alamy Stock Photo. Before his 1998 death, artist Ross Ward liked to say that “while you were watching TV” he came up with all of…
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Make It Rain
Photograph by John McCauley “The earth is shaking / From our beating the basket drums” —Tewa song So much depends on rain. Native peoples throughout the Southwest pray for it, dance for it, build its…
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Meet Our State Bird
ON MARCH 16, 1949, the New Mexico Legislature named as our official state avian species the “Chaparral Bird,” aka Geococcyx californianus , aka the greater roadrunner. Longtime hero of Saturday morning…
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The Story of Blake’s
IT WAS 1952. World War II was seven years in the rearview mirror. And Blake Chanslor, a veteran, moved to Albuquerque from Borger, Texas, to open the first Lotaburger on the corner of Southern Avenue…
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Ship Rock—Icon of Indian Country
Above: Ship Rock. Photograph by Jory Vander Galien. Some 30 million years ago, the angry lava of a rumbling volcano seethed to life. Magma left in the volcano’s neck cooled into a cluster of ragged…
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Los Burros de Carrizozo
AN ATTEMPT TO ENTICE travelers into exploring Carrizozo’s art spaces has grown into a Tularosa Basin phenomenon. Warren and Joan Malkerson, expat Minnesotans, turned their sights to this little town…
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Tumbleweed Snowman Lives
Above: Albuquerque's Tumbleweed Snowman. Photograph by Brian Leddy. Since 1995, the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority has been collecting gigantic specimens of tumbleweeds for…
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There's A Tree in That Restaurant
Above: The 100-year-old elm growing inside El Paragua. Photograph by Minesh Bacrania. At 300 years old, the cottonwood in the parking lot at El Paragua might be the most ancient tree in the…
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