Treasures Of History Southeast New Mexico People Places And Events

Best known as the site of an alleged flying saucer crash in 1947 and the "Roswell Incident," Roswell began as a humble trading post in the late 1860s along the Goodnight-Loving Cattle Trail and eventually grew into a metropolis of southeastern New Mexico. Once a cow town and home to famous Western figures such as John Chisum, Pat Garrett, and Capt. Joseph C. Lea, Roswell is also the birthplace of the New Mexico Military Institute, the testing grounds for Robert H. Goddard's rockets in the 1930s, and the site of the Roswell Army Airfield and a German POW camp in the 1940s. Today Roswell is a popular tourist destination and home to more than 50,000 residents.

Roswell is perhaps most famous for its alleged intergalactic visitors that may or may not have crashed here via flying saucer in 1947. However, some very real famous people have traversed and lived in Roswell, including singer John Denver and actress Demi Moore. During the turbulent Wild West days, Roswell was the stomping grounds of cattle baron John Chisum, sheriff Pat Garrett, and even his arch-nemesis, Billy the Kid. Among others to call Roswell home were Robert H. Goddard, the father of modern rocketry; baseball player Joe Bauman, who hit 72 home runs in one season; pro-golfer Nancy Lopez; Western superstar Roy Rogers; rodeo champion Bob Crosby; and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach.

In 1889, Roswell patriarch Capt. Joseph C. Lea, Pat Garrett (the former sheriff who shot Billy the Kid), and land developer Charles B. Eddy ventured to the territorial council and house in Santa Fe to petition for the creation of two new counties from the massive Lincoln County in southeastern New Mexico. The request was granted and Chaves County officially came into being on February 25, 1889. Today, 120 years later, Chaves County still thrives with a population of more than 60,000 people and is the dairy capital of the Southwest, producing around 1.7 billion pounds of milk annually. Explored in this volume is Chaves Countys earliest peoples and settlements, including Roswell, Dexter, Hagerman, Lake Arthur, and Elk. It also takes a look at long-forgotten towns such as Acme, Blackdom, Cumberland, Greenfield and even old ranching outfits and farms such as John Chisums South Spring River headquarters, the Clifton Chisholm alfalfa farm, and many others.

What can be learned from another retelling of the Tombstone saga? Recent revelations challenge the traditional view of Wyatt Earp's campaign against the Cow-boy confederation as a bloody personal feud a la western fiction. It was a seek and destroy mission sanctioned by the United States attorney general, the U.S. marshal and the Arizona Territory governor, following a year of corrupt law enforcement in league with the Cow-boys' livestock raids, stagecoach holdups and other atrocities. Presented in three sections, this book establishes the major players involved in the convergence on Tombstone, provides an account of Earp's activities during the 18 months prior to the final action and discusses the provenance and credibility of the "Otero Letter." Discovered in 2001, the letter--believed to be written by New Mexico Territory Governor Miguel Otero--offers evidence that Earp's party was given government aid. The author examines the details of the letter, including the shotgun dual between Earp and Curly Bill, the split between Earp and Doc Holliday, sanctuary for the Earp posse in Colorado and Holliday's extradition fight, Earp's covert assault resulting in Johnny Ringo's death, and the controversial courtship and marriage of Earp and Josephine Marcus.

Melzer offers an impressive new book about famous New Mexico gravesites, usually the only monuments left to honor the human treasures who helped shape state, national, and often international history.

This book tells the story of the thousands of “health seekers” who journeyed to New Mexico from 1880 to 1940 seeking a cure for tuberculosis (TB), the leading killer in the United States at the time. By 1920 such health seekers represented an estimated 10 percent of New Mexico’s population. The influx of “lungers” as they were called—many of whom remained in New Mexico—would play a critical role in New Mexico’s struggle for statehood and in its growth. Nearly sixty sanatoriums were established around the state, laying the groundwork for the state’s current health-care system. Among New Mexico’s prominent lungers were artists Will Shuster and Carlos Vierra, who “came to heal and stayed to paint.” Bronson Cutting, brought to Santa Fe on a stretcher in 1910, became the influential publisher of the Santa Fe New Mexican and a powerful U.S Senator. Others included William R. Lovelace and Edgar T. Lassetter, founders of the Lovelace Clinic, as well as Senator Clinton P. Anderson, poet Alice Corbin Henderson, architect John Gaw Meem, aviator Katherine Stinson, and Dorothy McKibben, gatekeeper for the Manhattan Project. New Mexico’s most infamous outlaw, Billy the Kid, first arrived in New Mexico when his mother, Catherine Antrim, sought treatment in Silver City.

The town of White Oaks, New Mexico Territory, was born in 1879 when prospectors discovered gold at nearby Baxter Mountain. In Gold-Mining Boomtown, Roberta Key Haldane offers an intimate portrait of the southeastern New Mexico community by profiling more than forty families and individuals who made their homes there during its heyday. Today, fewer than a hundred people live in White Oaks. Its frontier incarnation, located a scant twenty-eight miles from the notorious Lincoln, is remembered largely because of its association with famous westerners. Billy the Kid and his gang were familiar visitors to the town. When a popular deputy was gunned down in 1880, the citizens resolved to rid their community of outlaws. Pat Garrett, running for sheriff of Lincoln County, was soon campaigning in White Oaks. But there was more to the town than gold mining and frontier violence. In addition to outlaws, lawmen, and miners, Haldane introduces readers to ranchers, doctors, saloonkeepers, and stagecoach owners. José Aguayo, a lawyer from an old Spanish family, defended Billy the Kid, survived the Lincoln County War, and moved to the White Oaks vicinity in 1890, where his family became famous for the goat cheese they sold to the town’s elite. Readers also meet a New England sea captain and his wife (a Samoan princess, no less), a black entrepreneur, Chinese miners, the “Cattle Queen of New Mexico,” and an undertaker with an international criminal past. The White Oaks that Haldane uncovers—and depicts with lively prose and more than 250 photographs—is a microcosm of the Old West in its diversity and evolution from mining camp to thriving burg to the near–ghost town it is today. Anyone interested in the history of the Southwest will enjoy this richly detailed account.

Documents the effects of adopting standards for public land health and guidelines for livestock grazing management on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered land in New Mexico. The standards and guidelines would be incorporated into eight BLM resources management plans (RMP) that cover approximately 13.5 million acres. In addition, for each alternative there are existing land use decisions that are in conformance with the standards. These decisions would be changed to bring them into conformance"--Page xiii.