New Mexico Trivia & Tidbits - Page 12

Looking for New Mexico trivia? Try our list New Mexico little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Sen. Dennis Chavez made front-page news after World War II when he decried the discrimination practices Hispanic veterans were encountering. “We are Americans when we go to war, and when we return we are Mexicans,” he stated. Chavez was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1930 and to the U.S. Senate in 1935, where he served until his death in 1962.

first appeared: 12/14/2003

The 1,700-foot-high volcanic plume near Shiprock (pop. 8,156) is known as Shiprock Peak because it resembles an old sailing ship. The Navajo, however, call it Tsé Bit’a’i, which means “the winged rock.” One legend tells how the rock once flew the Navajo people to safety away from the north.

first appeared: 12/7/2003

Murray Gell-Mann, a distinguished fellow of the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He is known for his “eightfold way” theory, which brought order to the discovery of some 100 new particles, and for his discovery of the particles that he named “quarks.”

first appeared: 11/30/2003

Established in 1999 by Cielo Wind Power, the Llano Estacado Wind Ranch at Texico (pop. 1,065) was the state’s first commercial-scale wind-generation facility. Its single 660-kilowatt turbine produces enough electricity for about 350 households a year, with additional turbines under development.

first appeared: 11/23/2003

Thoroughbred racing jockey Mike Smith, a native of Roswell (pop. 45,293), was inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame earlier this year. He won Eclipse awards as the year’s outstanding jockey in both 1993 and 1994, setting national records—62 and 66, respectively—in those years for the number of stake victories. Smith also is the rider of Azeri, 2002 Horse of the Year.

first appeared: 11/16/2003

Pistachio trees were first planted at Eagle Ranch Pistachio Groves near Alamogordo (pop. 35,582) in 1972. Currently, the ranch boasts one of the state’s largest pistachio operations, with more than 12,000 trees, plus facilities for cultivating, harvesting and processing the nuts. A pistachio tree takes approximately 16 years to fully mature, when it can yield as many as 80 pounds of pistachios annually.

first appeared: 11/9/2003

Songwriter Nacio Herb Brown, famous for the title song to the 1952 movie Singin’ in the Rain (co-written with longtime collaborator Arthur Freed), was born in Deming (pop. 14,116) in 1896. He worked as a tailor and real estate agent before starting his songwriting career in the early 1920s, and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

first appeared: 11/2/2003

Founded in 1899, Cloudcroft (pop. 749) was named because it was often in the clouds. At an elevation of 9,000 feet, the area suits the English meaning of the word, which describes a clearing covered in clouds.

first appeared: 10/26/2003

Wagon Mound (pop. 369) was named for a small nearby butte that looks like a covered wagon—the community also was a stop on the Santa Fe Trail in the 19th century.

first appeared: 10/26/2003

Hobbs (pop. 28,657) is known as the oil capital of New Mexico, a nickname that resulted after the Midwest Refining Co., now Amoco, struck oil nearby on June 13, 1928. A marker near the intersection of Grimes Street and Stanolind Road in Hobbs commemorates the event.

first appeared: 10/19/2003

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Large Array of radio antennas west of Magdalena (pop. 913) consists of 27 230-ton antennas in a Y-shaped configuration that can be moved to provide resolutions equivalent to an antenna with a 22-mile diameter. The antennas measure naturally occurring radio emissions from stars and other astronomical objects, for astronomy and physics studies.

first appeared: 10/19/2003

Animator William Hanna was born in Melrose (pop. 736) in 1910. Hanna and colleague Joseph Barbera created cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, and Scooby-Doo, first with MGM studios and later with their own production company, Hanna-Barbera Studios.

first appeared: 10/12/2003

A new national preserve was created July 25, 2000, when the Valles Caldera Preservation Act was signed. It protects about 89,000 acres of the Baca Ranch in the Jemez Mountains outside Los Alamos (pop. 11,909), including the million-year-old, 15-mile-wide Valles Caldera, a collapsed volcano dome. The ranch itself was originally granted to the heirs of Don Luis Maria Cabeza de Vaca in 1860.

first appeared: 10/5/2003

With 31 rattlesnake species on exhibit, the American International Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque has one of the nation’s largest collections of live rattlesnakes. Species include the mottled rock rattlesnake (native to the state), the Panamint speckled rattlesnake (found in Nevada and California), and the Costa Rican rattlesnake (from Central and South America).

first appeared: 9/28/2003

The ghost town of Shakespeare, near Lordsburg (pop. 3,379), was named for the Shakespeare Gold and Silver Mining and Milling Co. in 1879—but before that, it was named Ralston, for William Ralston (the Bank of California founder who helped finance local silver mining); Grant, for Ulysses S. Grant; and Mexican Springs, for its fresh water spring. Today, the town is part of a privately owned ranch, but is open to visitors.

first appeared: 9/21/2003

The state chose turquoise as its official gem on March 23, 1967. Mined by American Indians for centuries and used for ornaments, turquoise is a phosphate of aluminum that gains its blue color from copper and its green from iron.

first appeared: 9/14/2003

The dining room of the St. James Hotel in Cimarron (pop. 917) still sports the bullet holes in its pressed tin ceiling that echo wilder times in the West. The St. James started as a saloon in 1872, and became a hotel in 1880, hosting notable guests such as Buffalo Bill Cody, gunman Clay Allison, and author Zane Grey.

first appeared: 9/14/2003

Grapevines were first planted in what’s now New Mexico in 1629 by two missionaries south of Socorro (pop. 8,877). Wine production began in 1633, and provided sacramental wine for more than 40 years. Today, the state has 19 wineries, producing almost 350,000 gallons of wine annually.

first appeared: 9/7/2003

When the New Mexico Motor Patrol was established in 1933, its first 10 recruit school graduates were paid $125 monthly, with an additional $10 to maintain their uniforms—with the exception of Earl Irish, who was appointed chief and paid an extra $25 a month. Today, the New Mexico State Police includes 525 officers and more than 490 civilian employees.

first appeared: 8/31/2003

Capt. Joseph W. Kittinger set a world record for the longest delayed skydive (freefall) when he dropped 84,700 feet from a balloon at the White Sands Missile Range near Tularosa (pop. 2,864) on Aug. 16, 1960. He fell for 4 minutes and 37 seconds before his parachute deployed automatically, and was the first person to achieve supersonic speed in freefall.

first appeared: 8/24/2003

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