By Rick Hendricks Fabián García was born in Chihuahua on 20 January 1871 to Ricardo García and Refugio Romero de García. Orphaned of both parents soon after his birth, García moved to the Mimbres Valley in southwestern New Mexico with his paternal grandmother, Jacoba García, when he was…
On Tuesday evening, February 19, 1889, Ada Hulmes, the piano player at Silver City's Monarch saloon, shot and killed John V. “Jack” Brown, a Silver City carpenter and also the fire chief of that town in southwestern New Mexico Territory. As reports of the killing spread, people flocked to…
By Robert J. Torrez Former New Mexico State Historian Governor Antonio de Otermin and approximately 2000 Spanish refugees spent the winter following their expulsion from New Mexico at what was supposed to be a temporary camp near El Paso de Norte, present day Cuidad Juarez. Here Otermin established his…
lime, plaster; Use of Lime in Colonial New Mexico; Documentary Evidence for Lime Kilns in El Paso An Essay by Rick Hendricks, PhD Background One of the earliest recorded uses of whitewash or plaster in New Mexico dates from 1583. In Diego Pérez de Luján's account of the…
by Malcolm Ebright Genízaros, according to the traditional short definition, are Indian captives sold to Spaniards who then became household servants. Most Genízaros in New Mexico were Plains Indians captured by other Plains tribes and then sold to individual Hispanos or Pueblos. The legal basis for this arrangement is…
1881 By Priscilla Solis Ybarra, Ph.D. Adelina (Nina) Otero Warren—suffragist, educator, politician, entrepreneur, and writer– was born in 1881 in La Constancia, New Mexico, near Los Lunas. She was the second child of Manuel B. Otero and Eloisa Luna Otero. Both her parents had deep roots in New Mexico,…
4 1 1827 By Rick Hendricks David Virdin Whiting was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on 1 April 1827 to Joseph P. Whiting and Sarah C. Virdin. He is best known…
By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Captain Melchior Díaz was a key member of the Coronado expedition of 1539-1542. He was characterized as being "a very upright individual with high intelligence and understanding, a good Christian, competent, and a man very experienced in matters of war, a prudent…
By David Joshua Anderson The history of Los Alamos is a fascinating chapter in New Mexico history. Los Alamos is one of the youngest counties in the state and has had a rich and varied past ranging from Indian tribes around 1100, Spanish explorers, ranchers, homesteaders, and one of…
9 11 1640 Governor Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate, 1683-1686, 1689-1691 By Rick Hendricks Some of the precise details of the early life of Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate are murky. He appears to have been baptized in Hecho in the Spanish province of Huesca in the Kingdom of…
