… was renamed on this date in 1952. It had been first designated Coronado International Memorial, but an adjoining Mexican memorial was never created.
“As a result of this expedition, what has been truly characterized by historians as one of the greatest land expeditions the world has known, a new civilization was established in the great American Southwest” reported the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1939. “To commemorate permanently the explorations of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado…would be of great value in advancing the relationship of the United States and Mexico upon a friendly basis of cultural understanding,” stated E. K. Burlew, Acting Secretary of the Interior in 1940. It would “stress the history and problems of the two countries and would encourage cooperation for the advancement of their common interests.”