The settlement of Union County can not be regarded as an isolated circumstance, but must be considered as a part of that great westward expansion movement which peopled many western states of the United States during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the early years of the…
Living, Mangas Coloradas was an enigma; dead more than one hundred years, his demise has been equally mysterious. Chief of the murderous Copper Mine band of Apache Indians, who ranged much of southern New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico, he was, physically, a giant among a nation of people…
Just as dawn was breaking one August day in 1824, three horsemen, who spearheaded a long wagon train, reined in under an enormous cottonwood tree. They gazed up at the purplish peaks of what is now Mt. Franklin. From the heights on the northeastern side of the middle peak,…
Texas declared its independence of Mexico on March 2, 1836. On December 19th, the congress of the Republic of Texas defined the boundaries as extending south and west to the Rio Grande and northward from the source of that river to the 42nd parallel, the eastern and northern limits…
A Century of Delight By Juliet Currie Gustave Baumann, ingenious master of the color woodcut, was born one hundred years ago in Magdeburg, Germany. Once he said, “Given a free choice in the matter, I would have selected the Southwest as the place to be born. I would…
An essay appearing in the New Mexico Historical Register, July 1935 describing the find of several invoices from the 1630s. These bills of sale were found in found in Parral, State of Chihuahua, Mexico, for goods shipped by Governor Rosas in Santa Fe. A Trade-Invoice of 1638 For Goods…
Curanderas (curanderos for males) are folk healers who draw upon specialized knowledge and remedies to heal physical and spiritual ailments. Curanderas (curanderos for males) are folk healers who draw upon specialized knowledge and remedies to heal physical and spiritual ailments. Practitioners are part of a centuries-old Hispanic tradition that…
Home to a large military presence engaged in top-secret projects, it’s perhaps not surprising that New Mexico has a reputation as a spawning ground for conspiracy theories and news of the weird. Among the most famous of these are the unproven claims of Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) sightings and…
In the Four Corners region of the state, the traditional houses of the Diné (Navajo) dot the landscape. In the Four Corners region of the state, the traditional houses of the Diné (Navajo) dot the landscape. While styles vary across time periods and are influenced by available materials, a…
The Navajo Nation The exact moment of the arrival of the Navajo people in the Southwest remains the subject of dispute. The standard view of archeologists and anthropologists suggests that when the Spanish arrived from the south in the 1540s, the Navajo were in the process of migrating into…
