Day One of the Atomic Age, I imagine during the eighty mile drive from Alamogordo to Trinity Site, New Mexico, was much like today except for the early morning rain postponing the experiment from 4:00 to 5:30 a.m. Darkness filled the elongated valley bordered by mountains of hard granite, solidified lava flows and eroded mesas.

The rain was undoubtedly welcomed by the sparse yet hardy vegetation decorating the valley floor. The rare summer moisture provided relief from the searing, relentless desert heat – a brief chance to rejoice and replenish moments before disappearring in an unnatural and previously unknown manner. Except for the sound of our 200 vehicle convoy headed to Ground Zero, Day One was sunny, windless and serene, just like today.

In a valley twenty or so million years of age, change comes slowly. A picture taken sixteen million years ago would look very much like a picture taken a million years later. On Day One, July 16, 1945, at Trinity Site’s Ground Zero, change came quickly.

Many visitors to the twice-annual viewing of Trinity Site will be disappointed. There isn’t much to see. The fifteen foot deep and 400 foot wide crater created by the world’s first atomic detonation has been filled. The tower from which the bomb was dropped virtually disintegrated from the blast; only a small display of one concrete footing remains. The earth supports life once again:  Wild desert grasses, miniature tumbleweeds, small yellow flowers and bachelor buttons grow where many expected scorched earth.

The replica Fat Man bomb casing.
Photo by Jim Reed

Along the far fence are historical displays of black and white photos taken on Day One. A flatbed truck displays a replica of Fat Man, a bomb casing similar to the ones used less than a month later to drop atomic bombs on Japan. A shelter has been created to protect a small portion of the original crater and to display Trinitite, a glass-like, jade green material found in the crater, newly created radioactive stone fused by the bombs caramelizing of the desert sand. The massive light and heat created by the blast remains incomprehensible to today’s visitor. One of the contributing scientists, Dr. Phillip Morrison, said, “Suddenly, not only was there a bright light, but where we were ten miles away, there was the heat of the sun on our faces . . . Then, only minutes later, the real sun rose and again you felt the same heat to the face from the sunrise. So, we saw two sunrises.”

Most obvious and impressionable to the visitor is the Ground Zero Monument, a lava stone and concrete obelisk erected to commemorate the exact site where history, for good or bad, changed. Children and families stand in typical rigid, smiling tourist poses and have their pictures taken. One man touches the lava stone briefly, removes his hand and examines it, as if expecting it to change from the area’s mild radioactivity. Some stand silently and gaze, mildly dazed; silent thoughts and questions are easily read in their faces. “Was this a good thing to have happened? Is the world better off for this experiment? It was inevitable, eventually someone was to have done it, if not us.”

Two of today’s visitors are Linda and Ron Stevenson of Decatur, Tennessee. While visiting Linda’s brother in Alamogordo they took advantage of the semi-annual event and joined the eighty mile motor convoy from Alamogordo to Trinity Site. Linda is surprised that radiation levels are low enough at Trinity Site to allow public visitation. Her interest piqued, she plans an in-depth study of the literature she was given in Alamogordo. For now she admits to having, “a lot of mixed feelings and emotions” about the site and the history created here. “My husband and I expected the area to be devoid of vegetation. We are surprised.”

Reverend Brian and wife Melinda Hodge and their three children of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico made the journey to Trinity Site, entering White Sands Missile Range from Stallion Gate to the north where a vehicle convoy is not necessary. When asked if she understands what happened here, eight year-old daughter Jasmine answers, “They blew off a bomb here, a Fat Man bomb.” Reverend Brian provides the thought, “This experiment possibly saved many lives by preventing a United States land invasion of Japan. I’m not sure if the world is safer today because of it.”

There may not be much to see at Trinity Site today, but the feelings, visions and impressions of the experiment and history created here provoke thought deep within the observer and are indelible.

Trinity Site, New Mexico, a part of White Sands Missile Range, is open from 9:00 am to 2:00 p.m. on the first Saturday of April and October.

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Church ruins at Gran Quivera Photo by Phyllis Eileen Banks.

The Spanish gave this Anasazi village the name of Pueblo de Las Humanas (a thriving pueblo) when Oñate first approached it in 1598 to accept the oath of allegiance to Spain. Largest of the Salinas pueblos, it was occupied for nearly nine centuries, 800 A.D. to 1672 A.D. Later, Spaniards called it Gran Quivira, the object of Coronado’s and Oñate’s futile search for gold.

Coronado had taken his search for gold, rumored to be possessed by the Quiviras, almost to present-day Kansas City. According to “The Land of Poco Tiempo” by Charles F. Lummis, a classic written in 1893, the Quivira was a Teton nomad, a cousin of the Sioux, moving wherever there were buffalo, planting a little corn, and moving on, an aboriginal Gypsy. Lummis says, “it was not the end of the chimera” (wild or fantastic conception), because Oñate also chased the “Seven Cities of Cibola” story of gold. Lummis insists Gran Quivira was the pueblo of Tabira, one of the larger pueblos with about 1,500 inhabitants, and one of the three pueblo ruins in the Salinas National Monument. The other two, Abo and Quarai, are northwest of Gran Quivira.

The Gran Quivira was an important trade center before and after the Spanish entrada. Although the people resisted the newcomers representing Spain, they reconciled and borrowed freely from their culture. However, documents of the 1600s indicate strife between the Franciscan missionaries and the encomenderos. The latter were ranking citizens appointed by the Governor to provide protection, aid and education to Indians and military support for the government in return for collecting tribute. As is often the case, the system was abused.

In 1627, Father Alonso de Benavides toured the Saline Pueblos, so called because of the lakes where Indians once mined their salt. He called the Gran Quivira the Pueblo de los Jumanos, pueblo of the striped ones, because the natives decorated themselves with a stripe across their noses. Father Benavides claimed he converted all the Indians after one sermon in the plaza. A church was built in 1629, but it was replaced in 1659 by Father Diego Santander, who supervised the building of the huge church of San Buenvaventura with an adjoining convent. It was never completed.

Dwellings had evolved from pit-houses to adobe and finally to masonry communal buildings. One account says Gran Quivira was a group of three and four story stone houses separated by narrow alleys or streets. Apache raids, droughts and famine reduced the population to less than 500 in the 1670s and the pueblo was abandoned. The three pueblos are known variously as “The Cities that Died of Fear” or “Cities that Were Forgotten.”

Fodor’s New Mexico Travel Guide points out these churches are a century and a half older than the oldest missions in California, Arizona or Texas. It adds there were seven missions built before the Indian rebellion of 1680, and two have been restored and are in use in Acoma and Isleta Indian pueblos. The Jemez and Pecos missions are state and national monuments and Abo, Quarai and Gran Quivira are the other three.

The latter has been extensively excavated by teams from the University of New Mexico, and visitors can see the way generations of Indians lived. The ruins are huge walls of stone resembling some of the crumbling cathedrals in the United Kingdom. As you walk through the ruins you can sense the presence of these people who enjoyed the “sea of grass” of the plains and the dwellings built with their own blood, sweat and tears. To have had to abandon them must have been a bitter moment – and the question still lingers, where did the Anasazi go?

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Sandhill cranes at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Carla DeMarco

Fall and winter are perfect times to trade the baster for the binoculars and head for the birds at Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, New Mexico.

Here, a temperate Rio Grande Valley climate and 57,000 acres of wetlands, wilderness and cultivated fields comprise a comfortable stay for thousands of waterfowl and sandhill cranes seeking refuge from northerly ice-covered waters, short daylight hours, cold nights and diminishing food supplies. The population starts building in September and extends through the second week of March, when the last of the cranes starts their migration northward.

While the refuge is designed to meet the practical needs of our flighty friends, a day trip here can also furnish the kind of intangible nourishment craved by the “inner bird” in humans. There is something magic about standing amidst the simultaneous hooting, honking, squawking and chortling of thousands of birds. The multiple sounds fuse into a symphony that shifts brain waves and lifts you out of yourself. If at the same time you are also gazing skyward and watching hundreds of birds sweeping, soaring and swooping in a synchronized dance of ever-changing patterns, your spirit might try to shoot right out of its socket and join in the performance.

More than 100,000 people from around the world roam the Bosque annually in hopes of viewing some of its 3200 species of birds, 75 species of mammals, 35 species of fish and 60 species of amphibians and reptiles. Among visitors’ favorites are the sandhill cranes.

Only 17 sandhills used the refuge when it was established in 1941. Now, they number as high as 17,000. Watching a flock of the gangly-yet majestic birds descend is a slightly sci-fi experience. In an upright position, gray as any robot, with legs extended like landing gear, they look more mechanical than organic as their armada cruises down to ground zero.

Birders know if they get lucky, they may catch sight of a rare white whooping crane among the slate-colored sandhills that blanket the alfalfa fields. In an effort to revive the endangered whooper, scientists placed whooping crane eggs in sandhill cranes’ nests at the sandhills’ Idaho nesting grounds. This experiment failed, however, when the whooping cranes failed to mate with each other and only a couple of birds are left from the experiment. More work is being done at this time for the introduction of the whooping cranes into this flyway. Kent Clegg, a biologist from Idaho, has experimented with sandhill cranes, raising them from chicks and teaching them to fly from Idaho to New Mexico behind an ultralight. These birds would normally learn the migration route from their parents. Kent, who has substituted himself as a parent, successfully reached the Bosque this October with three whoopers and six sandhill cranes trailing his ultralight in V formation. Now that the whoopers have learned the migration route, the hope is they will mate and perpetuate the species.

Birds aren’t the only creatures flourishing on the Bosque. The mule deer, coyote, porcupine, beaver, badger, raccoon, skunk and muskrat are among its residents. Pronghorn herds visit from the Jornada del Muerto, and the mountain lion and black bear leave behind taletell footprints.

Inching along the loop trail road, we spied a coyote foraging for food. We stopped to shoot the unconcerned canine multiple times photographically. The overcast morning was not amenable, lightwise, but nevertheless, we enjoyed a depth of color in the Bosque’s plant life panorama that would normally have been paled by the sun. The lustrous glow of seepwillow, saltcedar, phragmide and coyote willow compensated for too-long shutter speeds that eliminated the chance for sharp shots of moving subjects.

Those perky individuals who manage to get themselves to the Bosque by dawn report that at sunrise, thousands of snow geese, ducks and cranes ascend from the marsh ponds in a maelstrom of flapping wings and piercing calls before moving upriver to feed in the grainfields. At twilight, they return again en masse to roost.

Although the Bosque’s primetime show occurs in winter, the spring and fall seasons provide a stopover for migrating shorebirds and neotropical songbirds. During the summer season the refuge is quieter, with only around 100 species of birds nesting. Visitors should be aware that during late spring, summer and early fall the wetlands also sustains the unpopular but necessary mosquito. This dietary staple for resident birds, bats, amphibians, reptiles and fish, is, in Healy’s words, “as big as the birds.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends using insect repellant or driving with car windows up during warm seasons.

The Bosque is open one hour before dawn and one hour after dusk year-round. A stop by the Visitor’s Center will yield a wealth of current information, history, books and a video. Be sure to look out the east window where water is running and the sounds of feeding rufous-sided towhees, pyrrhuloxia, curve-billed thrasher, gambel’s quail, and perhaps even a rare fox sparrow fill the room.

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Elfego Baca

Silver was discovered in the Magdalena Mountains west of Socorro in 1867, creating growth in that army town. (Ft. Craig was 20 miles to the south.) By 1890, Socorro was the largest city in New Mexico. Reportedly 3,000 miners made it their home and their trading, gambling, and drinking center. Between thirty and forty saloons were built to accommodate their demands. It became evident before long that law and order were unknown qualities.

Enter Elfego Baca. Born in 1865, his arrival into the world was dramatic. His mother was pregnant at 19 and, so the story goes, was playing baseball. She jumped for the ball, came down with a thump, and “Elfego entered the ball game!”

His legendary fame was similar to that of Billy the Kid, except he was on the side of the law as sheriff, marshal, district attorney, school superintendent, and mayor. At age nineteen, he established his reputation as a quick draw with a deadly aim when he held 80 Texas cowboys at bay for thirty-six hours, killing four and wounding eight.

His goal in life was to be an A-1 peace officer. He wanted, he said, “the outlaws to hear my steps a block away.” After he became sheriff of Socorro County, indictments were handed down for the arrests of many of the county’s criminals. When his deputies began to arm themselves, Baca stopped their pursuit of lawbreakers. Instead, he sent a letter to each of the accused, saying, “I have a warrant here for your arrest. Please come in by March 15 and give yourself up. If you don’t, I’ll know you intend to resist arrest, and I will feel justified in shooting you on sight when I come after you.”

One by one, they arrived and laid down their guns.

Baca reportedly stole a gun from Pancho Villa, and Villa retaliated by offering a $30,000 reward for Baca, dead or alive. Baca did die in 1945 at the age of 80. In 1958, Walt Disney released a movie titled “Nine Lives of Elfego Baca.”

Socorro suffered reverses with silver losing its value. There were droughts and floods. The mines and smelter shut down as did the Crown Flour Mill. However, Socorro’s mining glory lives on in the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology that opened in 1893 under the name “New Mexico School of Mines.” The Magdalena Mountains, with the remaining shafts and tunnels of the mines, are its laboratory.

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Marsh Trail overlook. Photo by Leonard Padilla.

It is late winter, a Monday afternoon, in New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley. The temperature outside hovers at sixty degrees. For one person, the temptation to remove his coat and tie and play hooky from work is too compelling to resist. From Socorro, our adventurer drives south on New Mexico Highway 1 toward the entrancing and renowned Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge. He must, for obvious reasons, remain anonymous.

South of town, through and along desert hills, Highway 1 parallels Interstate 25 for five miles, then turns sharply over the interstate and winds down to the valley. The village of Luis Lopez is at the bottom of the hill. Another five miles further south is the more well-known village of San Antonio.

A short time later, eighteen miles from Socorro and just inside the Refuge boundary, an American kestrel perches on an overhead wire and surveys the scene. Just up the road, slicing through the air at about eye level, glides a red-tailed hawk. The Refuge headquarters and visitor center soon appear and, after paying $3.00 at an entrance station, the visitor takes the Marsh Road Loop. In the canal which parallels the road, a great blue heron preens itself. In the marshes, Canada geese, northern shovelers and buffleheads paddle lazily in small groups, some tipping over sporadically in search of food, scarcely taking notice. Down the road, snow geese line the top of a canal, providing contrasting foreground for the Chupadera Mountains.

Near the southern end of the loop, the entranced visitor’s vehicle stops at the parking area for the Marsh Overlook Trail. A blazing winter sun, on a downward arc in the bright blue sky, casts intriguing shadows of the hills and plants, beckoning the visitor to linger. Armed with an informational brochure available at the trailhead, he walks a circle around a marsh over a trail wide, level and smooth for most of its 1.5 mile length. One can easily imagine this a dance through mosquito alley during the warmer months, but today offers no problems. At the corner of the marsh, a trail spur climbs a small hill overlooking the Refuge. This refugee from work, armed with a camera and binoculars, is rewarded with outstanding views of the marshes and of the bosque beyond.

Marsh Trail overlook. Photo by Leonard Padilla.

At the bottom of the overlook, the trail around the marsh is blanketed in pleasing cool shadows. Suddenly the visitor stops in his tracks, halted by the familiar yet spooky sounds of a pack of yapping coyotes coming from an area of the trail just recently trod. The sound is so close he waits with wonder to see if the coyotes will emerge from the brush with an early dinner, but they are too wily to reveal themselves. The hiker continues, circling the marsh. SPLASH! The visitor’s intrusion startles a marsh resident. The visitor creeps closer to the marsh’s edge. Now visible is a muskrat that entered the water in self-defense. By now, it is time to return to the vehicle for a short drive to the fly-in.

The Marsh Loop Road intersects the Farm Loop Road and turns north. In a race with lengthening shadows now, the visitor still notes the colorful presence of a ring-necked pheasant. Sandhill cranes dominate the birdlife in this part of the Refuge in their numbers and size. The effects of a devastating fire that roared through the Refuge in 1996 are plainly visible, as are the restoration efforts by Refuge managers. At the north end of the loop road, the senses are assaulted by the sight and sound of thousands of snow geese, a blanket of white that covers an otherwise ordinary farm field.

Overhead, the fly-in is under way. More geese, some in a classic V formation, others in unruly flocks, make their way in from distant farm fields. Lesser in number, but quite distinctive, are sandhill cranes, with their pleasing warble adding to the cacophony of the geese.

Moments later, it happens. In unison, the geese lift off with a roar of flapping wings and loud honks, on their way to safety in their nightly marsh roosts. The sun is gone, but there is light enough for the snow-capped Magdalena Mountains to lend a dramatic flourish to the end of the day. Too soon, the fly-in is over. The Refuge is last seen through failing light and the dissipating fog of dust raised by passing vehicles.

The erstwhile visitor arrives back at his office, only to discover there are no messages on the answering machine, no faxes, no e-mail. He has not been missed. He hasn’t made up his mind whether that’s a good or a bad discovery.

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Socorro’s Downtown Plaza. Photo by Carla DeMarco

Socorro, a community of 9,000 in the sunny Rio Grande Valley, is the seat of Socorro County. While it is distinguished by history as one of the oldest settlements in the Southwest, its present and discernable future is based on the technology of tomorrow.

The name “Socorro” means “refuge” and dates back to 1598 when the people of the Pilabo Pueblo fed and sheltered weary members of the Juan de Onate expeditions that passed through on their way to establish a colony near Santa Fe.

The Spaniards built a church nearby which in 1627 was expanded into the San Miguel Mission. The present San Miguel Mission was built from 1819 to 1821 on the ruins of the earlier mission.

Socorro remained an agricultural center until the 1880’s when the Santa Fe Railroad arrived and extensive mining became possible. By 1886, when Socorro was incorporated, it had become the state’s largest town. By the 1890’s mining had declined and Socorro once again returned to is agricultural heritage. Many people moved away, leaving behind a legacy of Victorian homes.

In 1889 the New Mexico School of Mines (now called New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology) was established in Socorro. To this day, it remains one of the state’s leading centers for education and research. New Mexico Tech, as it’s called, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory may be the biggest reasons Socorro is home to one of the states’ highest percentages of Ph.D.s per capita.

In World War II Socorro benefited from atomic bomb testing at the nearby White Sands Missile Range. Today’s economy is still fed by such federal and state activities as the Very Large Array and Very Long Baseline Array radio telescopes which listen vigilantly skyward for intergalactic transmissions.

With its temperate climate and low rainfall, the Socorro area is well suited for outdoors explorations. Nearby, the Magdalena Mountains offer hiking, camping, fishing, hunting and rock climbing. The Gila National Forest is about two hours southwest. Skiing is as close as Albuquerque.

The Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge lies just 18 miles from Socorro. Here greater sandhill cranes and arctic geese winter among thousands of ducks and other birds. Over 325 species of reptiles and amphibians make the refuge their home or migrate through at different times of the year.

Socorro itself boasts the Macey Center where New Mexico Tech’s Performing Arts Series takes place. The Mineral Museum contains specimens from around the world. Parks, athletic fields, tennis courts, horse shoe pits, playgrounds, an 18-hole golf course and an Olympic size pool are available for recreational pleasure.

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The Baca family riding into Magdalena Photo by Jacky Barrington

It was Cruz Baca’s dream. Having grown up in the Riley area, then living around the high country, he wanted to ride the Rio Salado from its beginning all the way to Riley. Coming into Magdalena, New Mexico on horseback in time for the Old Timers’ Reunion was an added incentive.

“We tried it last year but just couldn’t get it together.” Baca said. This year the family started planning earlier, and Baca’s daughter, Tammy Atteberry, and her daughter, Kendi, (6 years old) from Fallbrook, California were able to join the trip.

Tammy, who hasn’t had much opportunity to ride lately, admitted the hardest part of the trip for her was speculating. “It was harder in my mind than it turned out to be.” The family laughed as they recalled Tammy showing up with three big bags and one box. They spent a day repacking Tammy and Kendi and had them down to “one small backpack each.”

Tammy had brought along Kendi’s riding helmet and actually got her to wear it one day, but then it strayed into a big pack and wasn’t seen again. Kendi takes western riding lessons at home and was very comfortable on her horse.

Altogether the crew included 60 year old Cruz Baca, Tammy (38) and her daughter Kendi (6), Baca’s younger daughters Megan (16) and Kayla (11), and 18 year old Cecil Rosales, a friend from Socorro. Each had their own horse; there were two pack horses; and Kayla had her blue heeler Phoebe.

The first day was the hardest according to Megan. “We didn’t pack right and we were each trying to carry stuff and it kept falling off.”

Kayla added, “And Phoebe wouldn’t follow. We had to pack her the first day. I had worried it was so dry. I didn’t want to have to pack water.”

Cruz said he was also concerned about heat and dust making the trip unpleasant. However, it started raining the day they headed out from the Quin Sabe along the Alamocita. It was a long day with a lot of stops to pick up fallen packs and tie them back on the horses. By evening they were at the old Martin corrals on the Salado and stopped there for the night. They had packed a tent for the girls which was quickly set up. Everyone helped gather firewood. Cruz proved the best at getting the fire going quickly, and he and Cecil did most of the cooking.

“We ate lots of tortillas,” Megan said. The girls took on the “washing up” responsibility.

Phoebe proved her worth that first night when a herd of cows headed straight for the tent in their rush to reach some salt licks. Phoebe turned them from the tent and sent them around her little group of travelers. The next day Phoebe seemed to have gotten the idea of the trail ride and that her part was to tag along. They did not have to pack her again.

After filling up their canteens and watering the horses at Red Lake, the group headed on and soon reached the Alamo reservation. They met James Guerro and asked if there was any place they might be able to stay and put up their horses. James suggested his brother Domingo might have space.

Domingo Guerro was very welcoming and fed them and their horses. They were even able to spend the night indoors in a house Domingo is remodeling. “No indoor toilet but the outhouse was a lot nicer than the bushes,” one of the girls noted. They strung some bedding so the girls could have some privacy.

“We rode through some very pretty country. Lots of people don’t know how pretty that reservation is.” Cruz said. Megan added that though they saw few people, “the ones we did meet were very nice.”

The next day Domingo rode with the group as far as the reservation fence. The group headed on down the Salado and by evening were at Riley.

They crossed the Salado to Lawrence Aragon’s home but found he was gone.

In the middle of recrossing the river to get to Richard Spears’, it “really started to rain.” Not only did it rain but there was thunder and lightning, which scared Kayla and she admitted, “I was crying for my Momma.”

Probably no one was able to hear her as they scrambled up the bank. Cruz said they were up at the Spears place when he looked back and the Salado was suddenly bank to bank with rushing water. It was a scary moment but they were safe.

They attempted building a fire under a tree in the rain but even Cruz couldn’t get a fire going. Then he found one of Spears’ butane burners and used that to heat some stew. With Spears still not home the group finally went into the barn and bedded down for the night, as they were wet and tired.

When the Spears family returned about 9:30 p.m. they tried to talk Cruz into moving everyone into an empty house, but most were settled. Cruz knew he didn’t dare take the bed Spears offered “They’d kill me if I did that.” He did accept a cup of coffee.

Thursday morning the group got up and rode out early, traveling about eight miles before they stopped for a breakfast of potted meat on blueberry bagels. They were sitting in the middle of the Riley Road when Martha Spears caught up with them to say, “You guys, I was going to feed you!” They went along with Martha’s suggestion that she might call Cruz’s wife Lorraine (staying with family in Magdalena) to see if she would be willing to bring hamburgers to them on the road.

So, it was a happy bunch we caught up with Thursday afternoon. Stopped by the side of the road, watching the dump trucks go by hauling sand for the arena, they were chatting away and eating Mom’s hamburgers. Not that Cruz and Cecil didn’t turn out decent meals – but they weren’t quite the same.

Summing up the trip, Cruz said, “It was lots of fun. The best thing you can do with a family.”

Megan admitted, “We laughed the whole way.”

Tammy added, “It is very nice to know that there are so many nice people. They went out of their way to make our trail ride memorable. We have renewed our faith in humanity to know that people will not have a fear to take you in for the night and invite you into their homes.”

The family wants to send special thanks to Mike McWhorter for the horses and getting them started; James Guerro for going out of his way to find his brother Domingo; Domingo Guerro and his family for putting them up for the night, taking their horses in and feeding them; Al Grieves for giving directions and input on short cuts; Richard Spears for letting them put their horses in the corrals and sleep in his barn; and Carra Clark for lending Cruz a horse to finish the ride. (Cruz’ horse came down sick the last morning.) A special thank you to the Rosales family for lending Cecil – he was a big help to Cruz and the crew.

Will they do it again? “God willing!” Cruz stated.

The family rode in the Old Timers’ 27th Reunion Parade on Saturday, July 11th. Perhaps next year even a larger group will ride through the beautiful high country and in to Magdalena for the 28th Reunion.

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Cattle made from recycled materials relax by the Rodeo Grounds. Photo by Kelly D. Gatlin

Magdalena has seen it all. From the days of lead, zinc and silver mining in the 1880s and cattle shipping when the railroad spur from Socorro reached the town in 1884 to test missies flying overhead, Magdalena has grown and shrunk and grown again.

One of the largest shipping centers west of Chicago, Magdalena was known as the Trail’s End of the livestock driveway from Springerville, Arizona. A wild town, with bars, hotels and gambling for the monentarily solvent cowboys, Magdalena earned its name peaceably enough around 1540 when a Spanish soldier saw the face of Mary Magdalene on the north side of the mountain that overlooks the present town. The face is shaped by a natural formation of rocks and shrubs, but the religious resemblance caused the mountain to become a place of refuge from hostile Indian attacks.

Today this historic town of 1100 inhabitants celebrates its heritage during Old Timer’s Reunion, the second weekend in July, with a parade, rodeo, dances and fiddle contests and crowning of the Old Timers’ Queen.

The pleasant sunny climate with daytime temperature averages of 85 degrees in the summer and 50 degrees in the winter, an altitude of 6548 feet plus the proximity of the larger town of Socorro, 27 miles east on U.S. 60, make Magdalena ideal for retirees.

The local economy is based on ranching but the largest employers in the region are the U.S. Forest Service, the school system and NRAO which operates the radio observatory on the San Agustin Plains. In addition to the regular service and retail establishments, Magdalena has two motels and five cafes.

A weekly newspaper, the Magdalena Mountain Mail, serves the area. The unique Trail’s End Art Project utilizing adobe, recycled baling wire and discarded objects is just down the road from the Boxcar Museum. A flourishing local theatrical company presents original productions several times a year. The Magdalena Area Arts Council sponsors a Spring and Fall Art Festival.

The compact layout of the town makes it ideal for a historical walking tour. The old railroad station now houses City Hall and the library. Evett’s Cafe was once a bank and the Salome General Store has been open since 1910. The old Magdalena Hotel is in the process of renovation.

The ghost town of Kelly, three miles south of town, had a population of 3,000 when the mines and smelter were working. Most of Kelly is in ruins, but the small church holds services once a year. Mine structures and a small graveyard can still be seen.

The 1400 inhabitants of the Alamo Navajo Reservation, 29 miles northwest of town, raise sheep, weave exquisite rugs, and hold an annual Alamo Indian Day Celebration in October. The Very Large Array radio telescope with its 27 antennas snaking across the San Agustin Plains is 30 miles west of Magdalena. Hunting and camping are available in the nearby San Mateo Mountains and Cibola National Forest.

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Place Names of New Mexico by Robert Julyan indicates there are 36 places in New Mexico where St. Anthony is mentioned. However, San Antonio at the junction of US 380 and one mile east of I-25 is the only one listed on the current New Mexico map. It is located ten miles south of Socorro and ten miles north of the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge.

The post office was established in 1870, and is still in existence. The site of this village may date back as far as 1600. According to Mr. Julyan, a document that mentions Estancia de San Antonio exists with that date . Two friars established a mission at the Piro Indian Pueblo, but after the Pueblo revolt of 1680, people left. Floods, pot hunting and recycling of materials makes it very difficult to establish exactly where the pueblo may have existed.

At about the time the post office was established, northern Hispanic settlers began to resettle there, and they kept the name San Antonio. These settlers raised grain, beans, chile, onions and grapes, and the Atcheson Topeka and the Santa Fe Railroad established a station there. The railroad was soon hauling alfalfa, wine, coal and coke. It was the advent of the railroad that ultimately gave the community its fame. Conrad Hilton’s father arrived here in the 1880s and opened a store. He was later to become known as “The merchant king of San Antonio,” as he also established a stage line to White Oaks, a then-mining town eighty miles to the east. He and his wife opened their home as a hotel, and it was here that Conrad had his first “hotel” experience. He and his brother Carl met the trains and carried passengers’ baggage. At $2.50 a day, including meals, the hotel made money. Conrad reports he first thought of being a hotel bellboy when a man gave him a $5 tip.

In his autobiography Be My Guest, Conrad gives an amusing anecdote that indicates the confusion over San Antonio, New Mexico and San Antonio, Texas. “I was not born in Texas,” Conrad says. This unalterable fact caused a brief moment of embarrassment for Governor Beauford H. Jester when he offered to make Conrad a “Texan of Distinction.”

“I had accepted the honor,” Hilton relates. “The press was alerted; the guests bidden to the traditional banquet . . . Being born in Texas was the prime requisite for the pending honor . . . Texans, it would seem, whether distinct or otherwise, are born and not made.”

After much flurry and many phone calls, the Governor found a way out of the dilemma of Conrad being born in New Mexico and not Texas. “You will become the only honorary Texan of Distinction in the world,” said the Governor.

Today the Hilton family home, at Sixth and Main Street, is in ruins. The Owl Bar, a tourist stopover and meeting place for locals, contains the bar from the old Crystal Palace. The bar is listed on the State Historical and Cultural Properties . The old Crystal Palace still stands on Main Street but is not open to the public.

The coal, wine and crops are gone, but San Antonio, New Mexico, still exists.

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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

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.

Twenty-seven dish antennas dot the flat desert landscape
Photo by Carla DeMarco

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