Today Cathy McCarty, the mother of Billy the Kid, rests in a cemetery off Highway 180 leading into Silver City.
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In 1873, Silver City resident Louis Abraham, a boyhood friend of Henry McCarty as he was known then, described her as a "jolly Irish lady, full of fun and mischief." But for being the mother of Billy the Kid, history would probably never know the name of Catherine McCarty. One hundred and twenty-five years later, history still knows precious little about her.
What we know of her today comes mainly from interviews with many of her friends and aquaintances in Silver City, New Mexico, where she lived for two years until her death in 1874. Those who visited her household often speak of the hospitality they received and the good home she made for her family.
Her world revolved around her two young sons, Joseph and Henry, and on her deathbed, she confided to Clara Truesdale, who nursed her, that she was worried about leaving them in a "wild country." If Catherine McCarty-Antrim had lived beyond her 45 years, history might have changed that day and the world would never have heard the name of Billy the Kid.
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“This is a unique time in our history, in the history of any civilization.
It’s the moment of the acquisition of technology.
That’s the moment where contact becomes possible.
The Very Large Array in New Mexico is the key to our chances for success.”
— Eleanor Arroway, from the film “Contact”
Dish antenna near the highway. Photo by Carla DeMarco
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Where once cattle grazed and cowboys drove their livestock to market, the Plains of San Augustin near Magdalena, New Mexico, have become a mecca for hi-tech science and astronomical research. How strange it would have seemed to those ranchers of a century ago to now find this stretch of desert occupied by these strange, tall, bowl-shaped structures pointing into the sky, never dreaming of the purpose behind them.
Today, this vast, arid desert valley is now home to the most powerful radio telescope in the world, the Very Large Array. With its twenty-seven dish antennas, each connected to the other, spread out over 22 miles in a “Y” formation, the Very Large Array, or VLA, is capable of detecting extremely faint radio emissions from the distant stars.
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