Category: Albuquerque & New Mexico

José Manuel Gallegos

José Manuel Gallegos was born in Spanish colonial Mexico, in the town of Abiquiú, Nuevo México, on October 30, 1815. His people were Hispanos, descendants of early Spanish settlers, and Gallegos went on to become New Mexico’s first delegate to the U.S. Congress.

Raised during the Mexican revolution, Gallegos was surrounded by republican ideals during his formative years of education with the Franciscan missionaries in Taos and Durango. Ordained a Catholic priest at age 25, Gallegos readily added political tasks to his clerical responsibilities. He became pastor of San Felipe de Neri church in La Villa de Albuquerque, as well as one of the nineteen “electors,” men who chose Nuevo México’s deputy to the Mexican Congress.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the Southwest, from Texas to California, to the United States. Nuevo México became the U.S. territory of New Mexico, and Gallegos was elected to its first Territorial Council. He won the election for delegate to the U.S. Congress in 1853, the second Hispanic Congressional Representative in U.S. history. Thirty-one years had elapsed since Joseph Marion Hernández, from the territory of Florida, had become the first Hispanic in Congress in 1822.

Suspended from the priesthood for refusing to accept the authority of French religious superior, Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy (who became the subject of Willa Cather’s novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop), Gallegos put increasing energy into his political life. Subsequently, he was elected to the New Mexico Territorial House of Representatives, served as treasurer of the territory, and was superintendent of New Mexico Indian affairs. Gallegos returned to the U.S. House of Representatives for a second term in 1871.

— Library of Congress

Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument (New Mexico)

… was authorized on this date in 1980.

Salinas Pueblo Missions

Once, thriving American Indian trade communities of Tiwa and Tompiro speaking Puebloans inhabited this remote frontier area of central New Mexico. Early in the 17th-century Spanish Franciscans found the area ripe for their missionary efforts. However, by the late 1670s the entire Salinas District, as the Spanish had named it, was depopulated of both Indian and Spaniard. What remains today are austere yet beautiful reminders of this earliest contact between Pueblo Indians and Spanish Colonials: the ruins of four mission churches, at Quarai, Abó, and Gran Quivira and the partially excavated pueblo of Las Humanas or, as it is known today, Gran Quivira. Established in 1980 through the combination of two New Mexico State Monuments and the former Gran Quivira National Monument, the present Monument comprises a total of 1,100 acres.

Source: National Park Service

Note: Other sources say 1988.

Lonely Are the Brave

Albuquerqueans in particular might enjoy Lonely Are the Brave, a modern-day western filmed largely in the Sandia Mountains. Kirk Douglas is a throw-back cowboy who breaks out of jail and heads for the crest on horseback to escape the sheriff’s posse (in jeeps and helicopters). It’s in black and white and difficult to see anything in the distant shots of Albuquerque — except that there wasn’t anything anywhere close to the mountains in those days (the film was released in 1962).

Walter Matthau is the ambivalent sheriff, George Kennedy a sadistic deputy. Look for future television stars Carroll O’Connor, WIlliam Schallert and Bill Bixby. Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo from a novel by Edward Abbey.

NewMexiKen once read that Douglas thought this was his best performance.

The film has been making the rounds on cable a lot lately.

New wilderness for New Mexico

The U.S. House has approved [October 18] a new, 11,000-acre wilderness in Sandoval County, sending the bill to President Bush for his signature.

The Ojito Wilderness would be developed just south of San Ysidro on Bureau of Land Management property. The area, which has dramatic formations and rock structures, multicolored badlands and rare plants, has been preserved as a Wilderness Study Area since 1991.

— AP via The New Mexican

A description (from New West Network):

Ojito is just an hour from Albuquerque, and rests between Zia Pueblo and the creeping crawl of subdivisions in Rio Rancho and Bernalillo, north and west of the city. Marked by spectacular slot canyon and red cliffs, gypsum formations and green river beds, the wilderness is also partially ancestral lands for the Zia people.

Pueblos from A to Z

The Seattle Times provides a brief description of the 19 New Mexico pueblos — “the oldest tribal communities in the United States, having descended from the ancestral Pueblo cultures that once inhabited Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde and Bandelier.”

The accompanying article — Catching glimpses of tradition in New Mexico’s native villages.

Thanks to Ah, Wilderness! for the link.

Drawn to the Lightning in New Mexico

NewMexiKen first posted this item two years ago.

Drawn to the Lightning in New Mexico

… “The Lightning Field” was ready to offer up its magic.

Seen from the porch, the rods marched away in phalanxes to the south. As the sun sank over our right shoulders, the metal spikes started to glow in the golden light. Their pointed tips took fire first, like candles, but soon the spikes themselves lighted up, top to bottom, as if glowing from within.

“This is like a sea, and these ships are moving in the distance” one of us said. “They look like centurions coming at you,” said another. “They look like those golden soldiers from Xian, like grave markers, almost like raindrops, like the Roman armies.”

For me, it was as if a piece of formal music, a Bach invention, perhaps, had taken material form and was playing before my eyes, not my ears. “You can make up stories for every row,” one of us observed, and she was right.

As an almost full moon rose, we sat on the porch and sipped our wine, captivated by what lay before us.

Popé’s long trek ends in U.S. Capitol

PopéNew Mexico and one of the oldest American Indian tribes in the United States will be recognized Thursday when a statue of Popé, the San Juan Pueblo leader who organized the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, will be enshrined in the National Statuary Hall in the nation’s Capitol.

“In a city of monuments, there will be a pueblo person representing one of the most ancient tribes, so I think that’s very significant,” said Herman Agoyo, past president of the New Mexico Statuary Hall Foundation and San Juan tribal council member.

— The [Santa Fe] New Mexican

Each state is allowed two statues in Statuary Hall. New Mexico’s other statue is of Dennis Chavez, U.S. Senator from 1935-1962.

NewMexiKen votes for Popé and replacing the honorable Senator Chavez with one of the Unsers.

What a dull day

Here’s the best I can come up with:

Does anyone besides me find it odd that people will come to your door soliciting your business or attention (house painting, stucco repair, charity, religion) but not bother to pick up the morning newspaper in the driveway and hand it to you as an act of kindness?

It was cool enough today I had to turn off the ceiling fans. Fall, which is awesome in Albuquerque, comes on fast at 6,000 feet above sea level.

Mack, the oldest Sweetie, has lost his first baby tooth. He decided he could wait until his daddy returned from a business trip for the tooth fairy to visit. (Realizing full well in his little nearly 5-year-old mind, I assume, that daddy spends more freely than mommy.)

Award winning stuff to try in ‘Burque

The Rattler at Cliff’s Amusement Park has been ranked one of the best wooden roller coasters in the world. The industry newspaper Amusement Today said fans ranked it 30th of the top 50 wooden coasters.

Cheryl Scantlebury of the Hyatt Regency Tamaya was named Hyatt Hotels’ Chef of the Year. She was chosen from among the executive chefs at the 214 Hyatts worldwide. She has been at Tamaya for four years and with Hyatt for more than 15.

The Albuquerque Tribune

State Fair

Well, Pat Boone probably won’t kiss Ann-Margret at this state fair either, but it’ll still be grand.

New Mexico State Fair

From now until September 25, see all the blue-ribbon hogs and well-groomed calves and three-headed roosters you want, enjoy a corn dog, then throw up on the ferris wheel. It’s that most American of all events, the state fair.

LeeAnn Rimes tonight; Alice Cooper and Cheap Trick tomorrow night. Is this a great country or what?

Burning the Zozobra (Old Man Gloom)

The Fiesta de Santa Fe began Thursday night with the burning of a 50-foot Zozobra.

Zozobra centers around the ritual burning in effigy of Old Man Gloom, or Zozobra, to dispel the hardships and travails of the past year. …

The effigy is a giant animated wooden and cloth marionette that waves its arms and growls ominously at the approach of its fate. A major highlight of the pageant is the fire spirit dancer, dressed in a flowing red costume, who appears at the top of the stage to drive away the white-sheeted “glooms” from the base of the giant Zozobra. …

Over the years the effigy has grown larger, reaching a height of 49 feet in 2001. Zozobra is a well crafted framework of preplanned and pre-cut sticks, covered with chicken wire and yards of muslin. It is stuffed with bushels of shredded paper, which traditionally includes obsolete police reports, paid off mortgage papers, and even personal divorce papers.

— The Burning of Zozobra – Official Site

The Fiesta has been celebrated in Santa Fe annually since 1712.

Photograph by Mark Nohl; courtesy of the New Mexico Department of Tourism.

Just imagine — what if this site were TexiKen?

From independence (1836) through annexation by the United States (1845), Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its southern and western boundary. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 confirmed the Rio Grande as the border between Mexico and the United States from the Gulf of Mexico to the 32nd parallel (just above El Paso). Texas insisted its boundary continued further along the river however, to its source in Colorado and from there north to the 42nd parallel. That is, Texas claimed 2/3rds of New Mexico including Santa Fe, much of Colorado, part of Wyoming, southwestern Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle. See map.

As part of the Compromise of 1850 the boundaries of Texas were established as we know them (poor surveying and meandering rivers notwithstanding). In return, Texas received $10 million in compensation applied toward its debt (worth about $200 million today). The bill also established the territories of New Mexico (which included present-day Arizona) and Utah (which included present-day Nevada and western Colorado).

Santa Fe, Texas — just doesn’t have the same cachet, does it?

[First posted September 3, 2003]

Two Buck Chuck

There’s been lively discussion about Charles Shaw wines of late (perchance made more lively by some very active partakers of the wine). If you find yourself wondering what’s all the fuss about, you’re not alone. Charles Shaw is actually a table wine—a nice, easy drinking wine sold exclusively at Trader Joe’s stores. The real draw for this wine is its rather humble price tag. The price is so low, some have deemed it “Two Buck Chuck.” We’ll get into the pricing later as not all of our stores are able to have that wondrous $1.99 price.

The Buzz About Charles Shaw Wines from the Trader Joe’s website.

It’s “Three Buck Chuck” in New Mexico, but I’d say about the best $3 wine you can find that comes in a bottle with a cork. And, while there’s only one Trader Joe’s in New Mexico for the moment — in Santa Fe, of course — another is opening this winter in Albuquerque.