Category Archives: Albuquerque

Albuquerque International Airport at 70 – New Video

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The Albuquerque International Airport 70th birthday video is finally finished and uploaded to YouTube. It turns out it is really the story of four airports: Oxnard Field, Western Air Express Airport, Albuquerque International Airport, and Kirtland Air Force Base.

And when you throw in the Santa Fe Railroad, a New York air transportation promoter, Charles Lindbergh, Mayor and Governor Clyde Tingley, the WPA, WWII and the Manhattan Project, and you end up with  a fascinating eight-minute narrated video.

Albuquerque International Airport at 70 Video

I hope you enjoy it, and look forward to comments or suggestions you might have on how to improve a possible second version, and please feel free to let others know about it, too.

DAR Community Service Award for creating The Albuquerque Tricentennial Timeline

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I was greatly pleased and honored last Wednesday, to be given the DAR Community Service Award for creating  the Albuquerque Tricentenial Timeline.

Casandra Meyers-Warner, New Mexico State 1st Vice Regent and Past Regent of the Charles Dibrell Chapter presenting the certificate.

From the program notes: “The Charles Dibrell Chapter of the Albuquerque DAR is pleased to present Tom Miles the DAR Community Service Award for his creation of the Albuquerque Tricentennial Timeline. The timeline itself depicts 600 years of Albuquerque history in a large 4 foot x 16 foot poster-format piece mounted in the East Wing of the Albuquerque Convention Center and the Passenger Waiting Lounge at the Sunport. It depicts and relates interesting historical events throughout the world as well as describing the many and varied ethnic and cultural arrivals and contributions to Albuquerque over this 600 year period. The Timeline Project took two years to complete and required Tom to meet repeatedly with the University of New Mexico History Department, the State Folklorist, the State Historian, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the Spanish Colonial Research Center and the National Hispanic Cultural Center. For graphics, Tom worked with Sandia Labs Graphics Department. The timeline was considered to be sufficiently interesting and valuable that the Tricentennial Committee contracted for the printing of a number of smaller, 2 foot x 4 foot, copies which were given to the Albuquerque Public School, Parochial and selected private high school and middle schools throughout Albuquerque to facilitate teaching Albuquerque, New Mexico, US and world history and Social Studies. It is impossible with a photo to show the importance of this work. You may want to  view on line two very informative YouTube videos produced  by Tom:  “5 Perspectives on Albuquerque, NM” and “Mexican Immigration Through New Mexico and the Southwest.”

Great Albuquerque/Coronado History Read

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Cities of Gold PPBKCities of Gold
A Journey Across the American Southwest in Pursuit of Coronado
Douglas Preston, 1992

463 richly researched and documented pages detailing 450 years of southwest adventure and discovery! Very hard to put down!

Douglas Preston literally takes you in his saddle bag on two 900-mile horseback/roughing-it odysseys with his cantankerous Santa Fe artist friend Walter Nelson. Two journeys cover the same geography: Coronado’s 1540 epic exploration from New Spain/Mexico through Arizona, New Mexico and Kansas.

The chapters and episodes are written from multiple viewpoints: New Spain’s (Mexico’s) culture, Coronado’s expectations in planning and leaving New Spain, Coronado’s experiences en-route, various and numerous native American initial encounters with white Europeans – Mexican Aztecs – and black Africans, And last, but not least by a long shot, … Doug and Walter’s experiences and observations of both what had changed and how little had changed in the intervening 450 years.

I found this a tremendous context piece to open my understanding and appreciation of the nearly complete uniqueness of New Mexico in particular and America’s great southwest in general. You will be exposed to amazing repeating patterns of history from 1540s Spain and New Spain right up into today’s New Mexico business and politics.

Cites of Gold is a thoroughly charming, entertaining, amazing, irritating, enlightening, frustrating, and fulfilling read! Check it out for yourself!

How you got to Albuquerque in 1850

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My sister mailed me this interesting newspaper nugget describing stagecoaches, stagecoach fares and travel via the Santa Fe Trail from “civilization” to “The Wild West” circa 1850:

“Crossing the plains from Independence, Mo., to New Mexico in the 1850’s cost $150 in the winter. Summer special rate was $125. Coaches with mail and passengers left Independence and Santa Fe the first day of each month. Usually they met at the Arkansas River crossing. Passengers were limited to 50 pounds of baggage. Any excess cost $.50 a pound.

“A second coach accompanied the mail-passenger vehicle. It carried baggage, supplies, feed for the mules and food for the passengers. Each coach had two drivers and six mules. The fare included food, but passengers had to help prepare meals. They also collected wood or buffalo chips with which to build the fire.”

A couple of asides: the trip could take from 8 to 10 weeks; that $150  would be $3,836 in 2008 dollars adjusted for inflation, and 160 years later, the same trip costs about $200 for a two-and-a-half-hour, one-stop flight from Kansas City to Albuquerque, with the added benefit that you don’t have to gather buffalo chips, build a smoky fire and cook your own meal. But … you still have to pay for extra baggage. The Santa Fe Trail is marked in red on the map (source: Wikipedia).

1845_trailmap

Great Albuquerque Adventure Read

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Clearing CustomsClearing Customs, by Martha Egan (July 2009), is a new and rollicking good read!  And a lot of it takes place in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

It is worthy noting that this story takes place in 1988-99, long before the Patriot Act’s privacy invasions became commonplace.  The book’s protagonist and heroine is Beverly Parmentier, owner of a small Latin American folk aft and antiques importing store in Old Town.

How Beverly finds herself and her store under surveillance by U. S. Customs Service is a humorous happenstance of President Reagan’s Central American policies and a relentless and opportunistic Customs Service Albuquerque Station Chief. The story shifts into high gear from there and never lets up until the last pages.

Beverly (Martha) relates in detail her surveillance as the story careens from Albuquerque across the country.  They include Customs Service employment of Vietnam Vets and taxpayer funded junkets to “surveil” Beverly from Albuquerque’s Old Town, North Valley, Santa Fe, Washington, D. C., a Colorado river raft trip, and a Caribbean island “getaway.”  You’ll howl both in laughter and in anger, over the ineptness and relentlessness of the federales abuses of power.  And then you will smile wickedly at the justice of the finale.

Lots of familiar territory and names and places throughout should make Clearing Customs a particularly enjoyable read to everyone familiar with Albuquerque, Santa Fe, New Mexico … or U. S. Customs.

New Mexico historical sports teams

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Danny Schrader researches former New Mexico sports teams, such as the Albuquerque Six Guns, a professional hockey team that played one season in the ’70s. He is also a supporter of  the Animal Humane Association. I learned of his website  and operation in Sunday’s Albuquerque Journal Careers section.

He researches team histories and produces logo T-shirts for such old teams as:

  • Madrid Miners – AA Minor League: 1020s, ’30s and 40’s
  • Artesia Drillers – Longhorn League: 1951-1953
  • Carlsbad Potashers – Longhorn League, Southwestern League and Sophomore League: 1953-1956
  • New Mexico Storm – American Indoor Soccer League: 2004-2005

Regrettably, the only two sports teams I mentioned in the Albuquerque Timeline are Albuquerque’s first pro baseball team ‘The Albuquerque Dons’ in 1932, and the 1984 El Dorado High School Girls Basketball team that won 74 consecutive victories – the longest winning streak in the nation. It’s neat to learn that Danny is filling the blanks.

I think you will enjoy visiting Danny’s website at www.pdvintage.com and taking a look at his great logo T-shirts. Myself, I’m looking forward to seeing what other fascinating and interesting former New Mexico sports teams he finds.

Delightful morning presenting Albuquerque and New Mexico history

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NELDOC 2009 The talking part was fun, but I really enjoyed the question and answer portion. They asked for more about the uniqueness of the Indian Pueblos, their sovereignty and cultures, our flying saucer incidents (Roswell and Albuquerque), Oñate and the Duke of Alburquerque, “the missing R,” Spanish and Mexican impacts on New Mexico, New Mexico authors, and New Mexico futures.

This is a photo of me with Rick Chase, the District Director of Purdue’s Extension Service and one of the organizers of the conference. Rick was the gent that came across the 5 Perspectives on Albuquerque YouTube video and asked for an introductory presentation on Albuquerque’s and New Mexico’s history.

Great fun. Good people.