Quay County sits in eastern New Mexico with Tucumcari as its county seat. The county is named for Matthew S. Quay, a distinguished Civil War veteran and U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. Quay was a leading proponent in Congress for New Mexico statehood. In 1903, when a new county was…
Coofor and Juan Aleman by Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Few New Mexicans today are familiar with the name Coofor (CohOHfor) or its common variant Alcanfor. The name likely derives from the Tiwa Pueblo word ghufoor, which means "parched corn." Yet, Coofor, or Parched Corn Town, was the…
by Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint The word "Cíbola" made its appearance for the first time in writing as a New Mexico place name in September 1539. On the second day of that month the Franciscan friar Marcos de Niza presented to Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza the written…
By Suzanne Stamatov On 10 April 1910 Fabián Chavéz and María Nicolasa Roybal de Chávez welcomed the birth of their first child, Manuel Ezequiel Chávez in the small northern town, Wagon Mound, New Mexico. The family, which would eventually include ten children, briefly left New Mexico moving to San…
