Deep in the Depths of New Mexico

New Mexico Cliff Dwellings

New Mexico was one of my late husband’s favorite vacation spots. Every time he visited he found surprising new worlds to explore for personal enjoyment and research. Such a rich depth of varied cultures can be discovered embedded in this southwestern state, America’s 47th.

Prehistoric Indians date from as early as 25,000 B.C. when the Sandia people left the earliest evidence of human existence. The phenomenal Anasazi basket makers and weavers existed circa 1 A.D. to 1300. The Pueblo

New Mexico Taos Pueblo Indians

Indian villages dotted the Rio Grande region during the 1200s to 1500s. Then there are the nomadic Indians, the Spanish and Mexicans. The traders and cowboys. The prospectors and frontier military. 

The railroad era started full-scale trade and migration from east to mid-west in 1878. Prospectors plied their luck and enticed big mining interests. Homesteaders and their stories vied with infamous outlaws. Farmers at one time were the mainstay and much later alongside came the atomic energy and computer chip industries. The world’s first atomic bomb detonated in 1945 in southern New Mexico after development at Los Alamos.

New Mexico Native American Pottery

After WWII trickles and then swarms of artists brought art from around the globe for the benefit of locals and the growing, huge tourist trade.

In some places, there are only a few blocks separating the culture segments providing rich specimens of artifacts and a wide scope of archaeology. Another spot in the world that possesses similar layers of different cultures stacked one upon the other is in Rome, Italy.

The capital city, Albuquerque, was founded in 1706 with eighteen families but not incorporated until 1891. The economic base has been in constant flux. From agriculture to transportation, From healthcare to technology.

Before the railroad in 1880, sheepherders ruled. When mining made it a boom

New Mexico Nuclear Waste

town with its saloons as well as a horse-drawn streetcar system, immigrants of all descents landed in droves. The main groups included Pueblo Indians, Hispanics, Europeans, African Americans and Chinese. The climate especially drew them. Albuquerque provided a dry, sun-filled refuge touted by many as healing. At one time many of its citizens included those suffering with tuberculosis and other respiratory problems and their caregivers. A dozen sanitariums were established.

In the 1920s, Albuquerque was a transcontinental air route stop. Route 66 brought transcontinental motorists through the city. A rural and urban mix congregate here in a cacophony of languages, races, and proud family histories.

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Janet Chester Bly

Janet Chester Bly authored 31 nonfiction and fiction books, 19 she co-authored with Christy Award winning western author Stephen Bly. Titles include The Hidden West Series, The Carson City Chronicles, Hope Lives Here, and The Heart of a Runaway. She resides at 4200 ft. elev. on the Idaho Nez Perce Indian Reservation in north-central Idaho. Find at more at website: www.BlyBooks.com

Stephen Bly’s Cowboy For A Rainy Afternoon took place in Albuquerque in 1954. The whole story spans one afternoon. On that day, a ten-year-old boy goes with his grandfather to an old hotel to visit five old cowboy friends. They play cribbage in the lobby and talk about the old days. The eldest of the crew was born during the Civil War. All of them rode the range from the late 1880s until the 1940s. They tell first-hand stories of what the West was truly like. Meanwhile, a drama unfolds that propels the old men and the lad to make one last cowboy stand.

Find it here eBook or Hardback: http://www.blybooks.com/books/western-cowboy-novel/

“For me," Stephen Bly once write, "history is not the story of grand ideas, or

Cowboy For A Rainy Afternoon

broad sweeps describing movements, events or social progress. History is the story of individual people. Not all are famous, but all do help define who we are today, and why we think and act the way we do.” 

The Secret of Oak Ridge

By Marilyn Turk

In 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acquired 60,000 acres of farmland in a Tennessee valley surrounded by the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. As property owners were bought out, they were evacuated from the area and the Clinton Engineering Works began building a huge production facility. The rural area was selected for its relatively remote location and its low population.

It would eventually become one of the United States' three secret cities built for the Manhattan Project, the American, British and Canadian operation to develop the atomic bomb. Unknown to them, the men and women of the Clinton Engineering Works would provide material for the bomb.

The United States was at war, and all Americans were encouraged to support the war effort.  Large numbers of workers for the facility’s uranium plants were recruited by the government, which built dormitories for single men and women and houses for married couples. Housing accommodations were assigned based on position and rank. The houses were rented, not sold, and modifications were forbidden.

Most of the workers were young, and married workers were discouraged from having children so they could devote more time to their jobs. Employees were forbidden to talk about their jobs, much less speak certain words like helium or the name of the equipment they used, warned that national security was at risk.

These restrictions had a negative influence on the morale in the factories and the workers became suspicious. Even though they were told they performed a very important job for their country, they were not able to see the results of their duties. All workers wore badges, and the town was surrounded by guard towers and a fence with armed guards who inspected every vehicle at each  of the seven gates.

In an effort to raise employee morale, the government decided to change the work camp into a  the perfect American town with theaters, roller-skating rinks, sports teams, bowling alleys, grocery stores, a library, churches, schools and more. The plan was to keep workers happy during their free time which would keep them motivated at work.

The population of the settlement grew from about 3,000 in 1942 to about 75,000 by 1945. The K-25 uranium-separating facility by itself covered 44 acres and was the largest building in the world at that time. At its peak, Oak Ridge had so many residents, its bus system was one of the largest in the United States. In fact, the entire town used more electricity than New York City.

The name "Oak Ridge" was chosen for the settlement in 1943 from among suggestions submitted by employees, however, the name wasn't official until 1949. Until then the area was simply known as CEW, abbreviation for the Clinton Engineering Works.

Even when atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945, the employees didn't know they had helped to build the weapon. They celebrated the end of the war like the rest of the country. Only afterwards did they discover the purpose of their jobs and their town.

Photos were taken by Ed Westcott, the only photographer ever allowed to take pictures of the town.

Marilyn Turk has been published in Guideposts magazine, Guideposts books - A Joyful Heart and A Cup of Christmas Cheer, The Upper Room, Clubhouse Jr. magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Lighthouse Digest magazine. The first book in her Coastal Lights Legacy series, Rebel Light, as well as her Lighthouse Devotions book, will be published in September 2014. Fascinated by lighthouses, she writes a weekly lighthouse blog @ http://marilynturk.com. She lives in Florida with husband Chuck and enjoys boating, fishing, tennis, and gardening when she’s not climbing lighthouses or playing with her grandsons.