2018
a brief history of urban trees in New Mexico
Author: Karen Van Citters FINAL REPORT: January 15, 2018
Produced in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, which is an equal opportunity service provider and employer.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF URBAN TREES IN NEW MEXICO
Completed by Van Citters: Historic Preservation, LLC in cooperation with Groundwork Studio and Prepared for State of New Mexico, Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division Contract I.D. 17-521-0410-0159
Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service
Author: Karen Van Citters
FINAL January 15, 2018
Roswell, circa 1930s This photo and cover photo from Adella Collier Collection, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Significant Events Prior to Spanish and Mexican settlement and development of the land that is now New Mexico, native trees lined the rivers and dotted the mountains. Piñon, cottonwood, oak, and fir were plentiful and used by Spanish settlers. Other native species that we know today as urban trees were in the region, such as New Mexico locusts (Robinia neomexicana), Rocky Mountain maples (Acer glabrum), Arizona sycamores (Platanus wrightii), honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa), netleaf hackberries (Celtis laevigate var. reticulata) and Arizona ash (Fraxinus velutina). Imported trees first came to New Mexico with Spanish colonists. From 1598 until 1848, through the Spanish and Mexican periods, more than 100 fruit tree cultivars were brought into the area along the Camino Real. During that time, the colonists kept to the Rio Grande valley region and used the trees they found there for fuel and shelter, but overused and severely denuded the riparian forests. By the time American settlers came to Santa Fe along the Santa Fe Trail, both the fruit trees and native shade trees were largely gone. These settlers started transplanting native cottonwoods and other riparian species in the area for shade. In 1850, as the U.S. won the Mexican-American war, the Catholic church established the vicariate apostolic of New Mexico, and named Father John Baptist Lamy as bishop. Lamy grew up and entered the priesthood in France, during a time when there was a frenzy of European enthusiasm for botany and trees. He served as a missionary in Ohio and Kentucky before coming to Santa Fe, and lived amongst the stately shade trees of the Ohio River Valley. He felt that trees were critical to grace and civilization and was responsible for bringing in new species of shade trees and many fruit trees, in addition to transplanting and cultivating native shade trees in urban landscapes. Notably, he was the first person documented in the research for this report to introduce the elm and horsechesnut genera to New Mexico, that are still part of New Mexico’s urban forest today. Lamy personally planted and shared trees throughout the community of Santa Fe, bringing about the shaded town that the railroad saw when it entered the town in 1880. Lamy was finally joined by the first tree nursery in New Mexico, which appeared in Santa Fe in 1868. A nurseryman from Rochester, New York arrived via stagecoach, took orders and coordinated their delivery to Santa Fe. While the nursery primarily traded in fruit trees, they also offered “maple”, “mountain ash”, and other “ornamental trees”. The railroad brought enormous change to New Mexico and made a lasting impact on the landscape. The railroad brought general economic development, promoted irrigation and the development of agriculture, increased the numbers of fruit trees into the hundreds of thousands, and brought new shade and evergreen tree species to the area. Agents of nurseries back east would travel to New Mexico, take orders, and then deliver the trees in the springtime via rail. Over time, local nurseries began to develop, and for out-of-state purchases, catalogues became the norm and offered a multitude of exotic tree species and cultivars. Railroad stations, wanting to provide a comforting stop for passengers, built depot parks with trees for shade, and were some of the first parks of New Mexico. The railroads were eventually augmented by a network
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of engineered roads that were used by automobiles and trucks. This greatly increased mobility and speed, and imported trees began to make their way to smaller communities in New Mexico. The railroads ushered an influx of not only tree species, but research, and people from other areas of the country that had a deep interest in and ideas for tree planting, species selection, and tree care. Exotic tree species that had been imported and cultivated on America’s East Coast in the latter half of the 1800s arrived in New Mexico, native tree species from other areas of the country were introduced, the US government established experimental nurseries and the New Mexico land-grant college, and acres of fruit trees were provided to Deming, the Rio Grande valley, the Pecos valley, and the Four Corners area. In the early 1900s, horticultural and beautification organizations emerged across the state, and advice on selecting tree species and tree care appeared in newsletters and newspapers. The earliest urban forest management efforts of New Mexico emerged to address the growing issues that the cottonwoods presented to urban life, as their cotton created a nuisance and their health suffered as available water decreased. As New Mexico moved through the mid-1900s, the role of the government in promoting the planting and selection of trees became pronounced. The U.S. Forest Service gave away hundreds of evergreens to residents, and experimental nurseries run by the Forest Service, Soil Conservation Service, and the Agriculture College sold trees to New Mexico towns and developers. Government recommendations for tree species led to booms statewide in the planting of black locusts (Robinia pseudoacacia), only to see them discouraged for planting to instead make way for “Chinese elms” (primarily Siberian elm, Ulmus pumila). Clyde Tingley, during his administrations as governor of New Mexico and mayor of Albuquerque, promoted the planting of hundreds of thousands of trees statewide (mostly Siberian elm, Ulmus pumila) by taking advantage of Federal New Deal funding programs, and establishing a nursery in Albuquerque that raised and gave away tree seedlings. As part of national Arbor Day celebrations, many cities in New Mexico handed out thousands of trees to residents. To stay competitive in this age of giveaways, commercial tree nurseries provided trees and planting advice in conjunction with landscape design. By the late 1950s, tree giveaway programs were on a significant decline. Cities began investing in developing and maintaining their park systems, and the Beautification Act of 1965 provided investment for efforts on public lands. At the same time, the new residential ranch house designs in vogue had landscaping that favored lower-growing plants with fewer shade trees. The Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) was distinguished as a nuisance tree, with no new replacement promoted or provided in its wake. As the interstate highway system was developed, a huge number of new species, cultivars, and varietals traveled throughout the U.S. Tree Species Most of the trees that were brought into urban areas between 1598 and 1943 were deciduous shade trees. After 1943, a plethora of evergreen species began to find their way into New Mexican cities, as well as lower-growing shrubs. The primary shade trees in New Mexican urban environments through most of the history were cottonwoods, black locust, and Siberian elm (called Chinese until the 1950s). The cottonwoods were used by settlers, as they were native shade trees that were easily propagated, but as more
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico people came to New Mexico and towns expanded, the water table decreased, and the cottonwoods began to die, particularly in Albuquerque, Alamogordo, and Roswell. Around the same time, the black locust had been tested at experimental stations and seemed to be a miracle tree with which the cottonwood could be replaced. New Mexican communities could not get enough of the tree until it was threatened by a borer. The Siberian elm was identified to fill the void, imported to New Mexico through research stations. Throughout the 1930s and into the 1950s, the Siberian elm was the tree of choice for New Mexican towns: it was inexpensive, propagated easily, grew fast, and provided shade. Although it was the favorite, other species continued to come into New Mexico and be sold through local nurseries, a process that is ongoing today. Below is a table that identifies the species that were planted or available in New Mexico as urban trees, organized by fruit/nut trees, deciduous, and evergreen, and then roughly by genera. They are identified in the time period in which they were first mentioned in the research. There may be other trees that came to New Mexico that failed; arrived, but were not in the project documentation; or are noted in a document that was not discovered during the course of research for this project. Species first mentioned in the research after 1943 are not included in the table, as this time period saw a huge influx of species. Those species that have been documented in the tree inventory portion of this project are noted.
Table 1. Summary of trees found during research and fieldwork Source: Groundwork Studio, State Forestry Division, and data in this history. This table was compiled by Jennifer Dann of the New Mexico State Forestry Division.
Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory Fruit and Nut Trees Fruit trees Spanish settlers Apple X introduced fruit trees Apricot X over the Camino Real. Cherry X Over 100 heirloom Crab X cultivars may still exist Nectarine X in New Mexico, and X Peach X hundreds more cultivars Pear X and varietals exist in the Plum X urban landscape today, Quince X including many ornamental species. Nut trees Almond X Pecan (Hickory) X X Walnut X (see also below) Deciduous Trees Ailanthus X Commonly called ‘Tree of Heaven’, this species is now classified as a X noxious weed in New Mexico.
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Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory Ash X In addition to the native Arizona ash (Fraxinus velutina), there are several species of ash native to the east and X Midwest of the U.S., as well as species from other countries, that are now present in New Mexico. Arizona NM X Native to southwestern Native New Mexico, this is the first time it was X mentioned as an urban tree. Green ash U.S. X Native to east and X Native central United States. Basswood/Linden The genus Tilia contains several species of X deciduous trees native to X other parts of the United States. Catalpa X The Western catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) is native to the Midwest X U.S., but this genus of deciduous trees also includes exotics. Chinaberry/Texas Exotic X Exotic found primarily Umbrella in southern New X Mexico. Chokecherry NM X The Western Native chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) is native to New Mexico’s cooler and wetter elevations, X but is first documented as being used as a deciduous urban tree during this time period. Cottonwood NM X?? X While several species of Native cottonwood exist natively in New Mexico, they were first X documented as being intentionally planted as urban trees during this time period. Elm X Lamy imported “elms”, probably American elm X (Ulmus Americana), a
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Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory native tree to the east and midwest. Chinese Exotic X Both Siberian elm X (Ulmus pumila) and Siberian Exotic Chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia) were imported during this X time period, although X the literature refers only to “Chinese elms” until the 1950s. Hackberry Netleaf hackberries (Celtis laevigata var. reticulata) are native, X but those first planted X were likely Common hackberries, deciduous trees native to the U.S. Hawthorn Some species of this deciduous tree genus are X native to the Rocky X Mountain regions and northwest U.S. Honeylocust U.S. Honeylocusts (Gleditsia Native triacanthos) are X X deciduous trees native to the Midwest. Horsechestnut ‘Horsechestnut’ can refer to the Hippocastanacae family of plants, or to the X X1 deciduous tree species (Aesculus hippocastum), which is still common in Santa Fe today. Kentucky U.S. A deciduous tree species coffeetree Native X native to the Midwest X United States. Locust The New Mexico locust (Robinia neomexicana) is a native deciduous X tree, but the “locusts” X Lamy planted were most likely Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). Black U.S. First identified Native specifically as Black locust during this time X X period, these deciduous trees were planted heavily at one time, but
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Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory largely discontinued by 1943. Maple While several species of maple are native to the mountains and riparian areas of New Mexico, X other species of maple X were likely imported by Lamy and the nursery from the east during this time period. Box elder U.S. Box elders, a species in Native the Acer genus, were X X specifically mentioned X in the research during this time period. Mountain ash The common name ‘mountain ash’ can refer to a number of tree species, but the X nursery’s import may X have been a Sorbus species native in other parts of the United States. Mulberry There are many species of Mulberry. Red X mulberry (Morus rubra) X is native to the east and midwest of the U.S. Russian mulberry Exotic Russian mulberry trees, often commonly named X X White mulberry, are exotic deciduous trees. Oak There are a few species of deciduous oak trees found in New Mexico, including the native X Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) and other introduced species. Live U.S. “Live oaks” may refer Native to Southern live oaks, X Quercus virginiana, X common to the southern United States. “Olive” Neither of the species commonly called olive
trees in New Mexico are true olive trees.
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Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory New Mexico NM New Mexico olive Native (Neomexicana forestiera) is a native tree, but first X X documented as being used in an urban landscape during this time period. Russian Russian olive (Eleagnus angustifolia) is an exotic X tree, now classified as a X noxious weed in New Mexico. Osage Orange U.S. Deciduous tree native to Native X Texas and Oklahoma. X Poplar There are several species of these exotic X deciduous trees found in New Mexico. Lombardy Exotic X X Silver Exotic Also commonly known X X as White poplar. Sycamore The sycamores available during this time period might have included native Arizona sycamore transplants, or species native to other X X parts of the U.S. The London plane tree (Platanus acerifolia) is a common sycamore hybrid in the recent New Mexico landscape. Walnut The Arizona walnut (Juglans major) is native to southern New Mexico, and other X walnut species native to the eastern U.S. have a New Mexico presence. Black U.S. Deciduous tree native to Native X the eastern United X States. Butternut U.S. A member of the Native Juglans genus, this is X also commonly called white walnut. English Exotic Lamy was documented X X1 as importing exotic
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Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory “English walnuts”, a species still present in central New Mexico. Willow There are willows native to New Mexico, including the Peachleaf willow tree (Salix X amygdaloides), and several other species of introduced willow. Osier Exotic X Records of Lamy’s garden include Weeping Exotic references to “Osier and X Weeping willows”, both X exotic species . Other Species/ These genera and Genera species were mentioned in the research, but do
not have a common presence in New Mexico today. Balm of Gilead U.S. X A deciduous tree, Native sometimes called the Balsam poplar, more
typically found in moist riparian areas of mountain forest. Buffaloberry X The genus Shepherdia contains several species of shrubs. China umbrella Exotic X Invasive deciduous species in warm,
southern areas of the U.S.. Japonicum U.S. Common deciduous tree Native X to the Midwest. Siberian pea Exotic An introduced X deciduous shrub found in the northern U.S. Evergreen Trees Bishop Lamy’s garden was documented as X containing “evergreens”. Arborvitae X Arborvitae refers to the genus Thuja, which X includes several evergreen species. California Pepper Exotic X Invasive evergreen
Tree species in warm,
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Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory southern areas of the U.S.. Cedar “True” cedars of the genus Cedrus are exotics and include a X few species found in New Mexico. Himalayan Exotic X Commonly called X ‘Deodar cedar’. “Red cedar” Exotic “Red cedars” in the research likely referred to Eastern red cedar X X (Juniperus virginiana), which are members of the Juniper genus. Cypress Evergreens in the genus Cupressus are found In New Mexico, including X both native and exotic species. Arizona NM X Native to New Mexico, Native the first documented use of this species in an X urban landscape was during this time period. Monterey U.S. X Native to the central Native coast of California; not
commonly found in New Mexico. Eucalyptus Broadleaf evergreen found more commonly X X1 in southern New Mexico. Euonymus Genus of both deciduous and X evergreen shrubs, X2 including species still found in New Mexico. Fir The Abies genus contains many species X of trees, both native and exotic. Douglas NM Not actually part of the Native Abies genus, and so not a “true” fir. Native to X New Mexico, this is the X first reference of this species in urban landscapes. White NM Native to New Mexico, X X Native this is the first reference
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Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory of this species in urban landscapes. Juniper There are several native New Mexico species of evergreens in the X Juniperus genus, as well as some introduced exotics. Alligator NM Native to New Mexico, Native this is the first reference X of this species in urban landscapes. Pine There are numerous species of pine common to New Mexico urban X landscapes, both native and exotic. Austrian Exotic An exotic evergreen that is commonly used in X X New Mexico landscapes. Pinon NM Native to New Mexico, Native this is the first reference X X of this species in urban landscapes. Ponderosa NM Native to New Mexico, Native this is the first reference X X of this species in urban landscapes. Scotch Exotic An exotic evergreen that is commonly used in X X New Mexico landscapes. “Yellow” US “Yellow pine” is a term Native used to refer to a number of tree species. X In the Western U.S., the X term commonly includes Ponderosa pine and Jeffrey pine. Spruce Several exotic and native species of the genus Picea are found X in New Mexico urban landscapes. Blue NM Both native species to X X Native the mountains of New Engelmann NM Mexico, this is the first Native X time period that these X species are documented
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Tree Type Exotic 1598- 1850- 1879- 1912- 1930- Notes Found or 1850 1879 1912 1930 1943 During Native Inventory as being used in the urban landscape. Tamarisk More commonly found in riparian areas of New Mexico than urban landscapes, this tree was X recommended as a hedge tree, but is now classified as a noxious weed in New Mexico. 1 Documented in other recent available tree inventories. 2 As a shrub, would not be counted during this inventory effort, but known to exist.
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ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS
A&P Atlantic & Pacific Railroad AFB Air Force Base AT&SF Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railroad BOR Bureau of Reclamation CRI&&P Chicago, Rock Island & El Paso Railway CSWR Center for Southwest Research EP&NE El Paso and Northeastern Railroad FERA Federal Emergency Relief Act PV&NE Pecos Valley & Northeastern Railroad PWA Public Works Administration Southern Pacific Southern Pacific Railroad Company Stark Brothers Stark Brothers Nurseries & Orchards Co. UNM University of New Mexico USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture WPA Works Project Administration
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... i Significant Events ...... i Tree Species ...... ii ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS ...... 12 1.0 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1 Project Scope ...... 1 1.2 Terminology ...... 2 1.2.1 Tree Taxonomy ...... 2 1.2.2 Tree Origin ...... 2 1.2.3 Urban Trees and Forest ...... 2 1.3 Project Methodology ...... 3 2.0 SPANISH ORCHARDS AND U.S. IMPORTS (1598-1850) ...... 4 4.0 TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENT AND NURSERIES (1850-1879) ...... 8 5.0 RAILROADS, AGENTS AND NURSERIES (1879-1912) ...... 14 5.2 Transcontinental Routes and the Influx of Trees ...... 15 5.2.1 Raton to Las Cruces ...... 16 5.2.2 Tucumcari to Gallup ...... 18 5.2.3 Lordsburg to El Paso ...... 19 5.3 Regional Routes and Irrigation ...... 19 5.3.1 Pecos Valley, Irrigation, and a Railroad ...... 20 5.3.2 Santa Rosa through Carrizozo and Alamogordo ...... 21 5.3.3 Aztec and Urban Acequias ...... 22 5.3.4 The Belen Cutoff and Clovis ...... 23 5.4 Agents and Nurseries ...... 23 6.0 STATEHOOD AND SHADE TREES (1912-1930) ...... 30 6.1 Changes in Cities & Commerce ...... 30 6.2 Suburban Development ...... 35 7.0 THE ELM AND THE NEW DEAL (1930-1943) ...... 46 8.0 POST RELIEF (1943-1976) ...... 53 8.1 Federal Government Changes ...... 53 8.2 Highways and Street Trees ...... 55
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8.2 Beautification ...... 57 9.0 SUMMARY ...... 61 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 62
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Artesian well at Roswell ...... 20 Figure 2. Alameda Park in 1907 ...... 22 Figure 3. Fully productive Pecos Valley Orchard, 1920s ...... 25 Figure 4. College of Agriculture, road from depot to college, 1906...... 26 Figure 5. Carlsbad c. 1920s...... 32 Figure 6. Spruce Park in the 1980s ...... 37 Figure 7. Lover’s Lane in Roswell, c. 1900 ...... 39 Figure 8. Section of 1934 Shelterbelt ...... 47
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Summary of trees found during research and fieldwork ...... iii Table 2. Tree types recommended by U.S. Forest Service for New Mexico in 1927 ...... 41
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
Modern American cities are “a great place to look at and learn about trees, because this fundamentally unnatural environment has a far bigger variety than any crowded real forest.”1 In the modern U.S. city, citizens are ensconced in a sea of hundreds of species of trees, many that are not native to the geographic area, and yet most never consider how these trees came to be a part of the urban environment. We may appreciate their shade in the summer, colors in the fall, and other qualities, and may even develop great affection for them, but to most they are strangers. We do not recognize the journeys rom far flung lands that some have taken to arrive here; the efforts from the top of the American political hierarchy taken to save some of them from pests and disease; the key figures that influence where and when they arrived; the campaigns launched to eradicate some of them; and, the simple acknowledgement that trees are as susceptible to age disease, and politics as are humans. This report is the story of the urban trees in New Mexico, and their journey from 1598-1971. 1.1 Project Scope This report is part of a statewide project to assess the condition of some of New Mexico’s oldest community trees in public spaces, and provide recommendations for their management. Trees are often at the core of New Mexico’s historic districts, providing significant cultural, environmental, aesthetic, and economic contributions. New Mexico State Forestry received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service to develop an approach to tree management in historic districts, transitioning into resiliency while maintaining the integrity of our cultural landscapes. Tree inventories are being conducted by Groundwork Studio in each of the 33 New Mexico county seats to gauge the overall composition and health of the urban forest in historic districts and/or areas with social, cultural, and economic interest to the community. Van Citters: Historic Preservation, LLC was contracted by Groundwork Studio to develop a brief historical narrative of urban trees in New Mexico to document their role in New Mexico’s cultural landscape. The urban forest health data and historical narrative will be used to complete in-depth urban forest management planning. The project goals include: 1. Provide communities a consistent, logical approach to historic district tree management 2. Improve the health and composition of our historic district forests. 3. Better connect communities with the benefits that historic district forests provide.
1 Jill Jonnes, Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape, (New York: Penguin Books, 2017), p. xvii.
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1.2 Terminology The terminology used in the historical record was basic and very different from the terminology for plants and trees today. Below is a brief description of the differences and how terms are represented in this report. 1.2.1 Tree Taxonomy In tree taxonomy, trees that are closely related and share similar characteristics are classified in the same genus (plural genera). Trees are further classified into species, which identify the particular tree. Species scientific names are the combination of the genus and the specific epithet (e.g., Ulmus pumila). Species can be further divided into forma, cultivars, and varietals. Hybrids are a cross between two species. In this research, sometimes only the genus of the tree (e.g., “elm”) was found, sometimes species (e.g., “English walnut”), and in other cases, hybrid, cultivar or varietal names were found (e.g., “Canaerti”). The use of common names instead of scientific names in arboriculture often leads to inaccuracies. For example, Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) was called Chinese elm until the 1950s, and this misnomer is still verbally used today. Chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia) is its own species, now commonly re-branded Lacebark elm. In this report’s research, common names (e.g., Chinese elm) were almost exclusively found. As another complicating factor in historical documentation, as taxonomy techniques have improved, particular species have been correctly classified into different genera. For example, the term “red cedar” appears in the research for this report. This is likely what is now commonly called “Eastern red cedar” (Juniperus virginiana), which in the same genus as other juniper species, but there is also a commonly named “Western red cedar” in New Mexico (Thuja plicata), included in the same genus as arborvitae (Thuja). In this report, tree names are provided exactly as written in the research. If the author deduces a species from context, the discussion reflects both the common and scientific name. 1.2.2 Tree Origin Trees are discussed in this report as native, exotic, and naturalized:
– Native species are those that occur naturally in an ecosystem; in the report discussion, trees are referred to as native to New Mexico, or native to other parts of the U.S. – Exotic species are those introduced from other parts of the world, that can survive in cultivated landscapes
Species of trees may also be referred to as invasive in this report; these are trees that have naturalized to the point that they can aggressively take over entire landscapes and displace other species. 1.2.3 Urban Trees and Forest The term ‘urban’ is used in this report to describe areas with relatively high population density compared to surrounding areas. ‘Urban trees’ include both those on private and public property within an urban area. An ‘urban forest’ includes all of the trees within an urban area. ‘Urban Forestry’ refers to the care and management of the tree population within an urban area.
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1.3 Project Methodology This study documents the trail of trees to New Mexico from fruit trees brought by the earliest Spanish colonists to evergreens in a modern subdivision. To document the history of trees in New Mexico the author visited the University of New Mexico, Center for Southwest Research; Palace of the Governors Photo Archives; and New Mexico State Records Center and Archives. Online resources and numerous books about the history of trees, New Mexico, and transportation were also used to complete the study. Information from these resources were analyzed and integrated to develop this report. The report is organized by historical periods Spanish Colonial, Territorial Settlement, Railroads, Statehood, the New Deal, and Post Relief. The original temporal parameters were 1598-1967, Spanish entry into what would become New Mexico until 50 years prior to the date of the report, a standard cutoff date used in National Register of Historic Places evaluations. However, there were important events with the Chinese elm and Dutch elm disease that affected New Mexico that extend the report to 1971. Most of the history after the introduction of the Siberian elm to New Mexico, the author uses the term “Chinese elm.” This was used because New Mexicans did not seem to know or care about the difference between the Chinese and the Siberian elm until the 1950s. Once that difference is defined in the historical record, the author uses the term “Siberian elm.” Many genera and species were referenced in the historical record. Some may be known by different names today. The author used the terms as they were presented in papers, letters, and newspapers. There were many recommendations throughout the years for trees that “should” be planted by New Mexico residents and many lists of trees that “were” planted by residents. One should keep in mind the difference while reading the history. Once the draft report was complete, Jennifer Dann of the New Mexico State Forestry Division helped to develop the Executive Summary and using the text of this report, results from the fieldwork, and her general knowledge compiled the table of trees in New Mexico (Table 1).
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2.0 SPANISH ORCHARDS AND U.S. IMPORTS (1598-1850)
The first people to import trees to New Mexico were the Spanish. The documented native species that were in the area prior to importing included: piñon, cottonwood, oak, and Douglas fir. The piñon was used by Spanish settlers to make plowshares and spinning wheel legs; cottonwood was used to make wine barrels and cart wheels; oak for stirrups and cart frames; and Douglas fir for plow shafts, timbers for bridges, and vigas for roof structures.2 In fact, trees were so important to the colonial development that by 1839, an Anglo-American visitor noted that there had been significant deforestation near Spanish settlements. Josiah Gregg, an explorer and trader, wrote: …on the water courses there is little timber to be found except cottonwoods, scantily scattered along the banks. Those of the Rio del Norte [Rio Grande] are now nearly bare throughout the whole range of the settlements, and the inhabitants are forced to resort to the distant mountains for most of their fuel.3 Sixteen years later, in 1855, it was noted that while the Spanish had access to plenty of woodland when they settled, there remained barely a tree for shade.4 The Spanish were using the wood resources, and over-using them, but they were also altering the landscape with new plants to provide fruit and vegetables from Spain. In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate followed an established route and claimed the land that would become New Mexico on behalf of the King of Spain. Because of his journey, the route officially became the Camino Real: it extended 1,500 miles from Mexico City to Santa Fe and became the lifeblood for the Spanish colonists. Oñate traveled north to Ohkay Owingeh where he ultimately put 1,500 tribal members and settlers to work digging what is believed to be the oldest acequia in New Mexico.5 With land division, products arriving via the Camino Real, and the development of acequias, a sustainable Spanish colony was established in New Mexico. When Santa Fe was founded in 1610, the Mexican viceroy told the governor to formally found La Villa Real de Santa Fe and directed him to, “mark out for each resident two lots for house and garden and two suertes [parcels] for vegetable garden and two more for vineyard and for an olive grove and four cavallerias [about 400 acres] of land, and for the irrigation thereof the necessary water.”6 The laws stated that the colonists should begin their gardens before constructing homes and that each settler should bring their own breeding stock which might have included cattle, horses, sheep, and chickens. It is doubtful that any olive grove that may have been planted when they arrived would have survived in the climate of Santa Fe, and there is no textual data that the trees were actually planted, or archaeological evidence of olive pits. But, one can appreciate the
2 Robert MacCameron, “Environmental Change in Colonial New Mexico,” Environmental History Review, Vol. 18, No. 2, (Summer 1994): 25. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 William W. Dunmire, Gardens of New Spain: How Mediterranean Plants and Foods Changed America, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), pp. 168-69; and Juan Estevan Arellano, “Fruit of Their Labors: The Agricultural Revolution in New Spain,”
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
desire to include the tree that produced a product that was so integral to the Spanish diet. While there was no official requirement for orchards, Spanish varieties of fruit trees were planted and survived. The trees arrived at the new settlements with other goods that traveled the Camino Real.7 Often a single fruit tree was shared between two or more families. These trees were precious shared resources: individual branches were documented and passed on to heirs.8 According to Ron Walser, a horticulturist with New Mexico State University, there could be more than 100 heirloom cultivars of fruit trees that are associated with the Camino Real. The fruit trees included apple, nectarine, apricot, pear, cherry, plum, and peach.9 Historians believe that the apricot, cherry, nectarine and peach were in New Mexico as early as 1630. Apples were growing in Manzano as early as 1633 (surely the reason the village was named after the fruit), but the pear is not mentioned in New Mexico until 1776.10 In addition to developing agriculture and providing rules on land division, the Spanish began to construct towns. The Laws of the Indies provided rules on how to establish a town center, which included a fortified plaza with a church and a defensible perimeter. Although the formations of plazas followed the law and were there to provide protection of the citizens, during resettlement of New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt, most of the Spanish settlers chose to develop small ranchos (a farm with enough stock and agriculture to maintain the family) connected to acequias (ditches) that flowed with diverted water from a nearby river. These larger sites away from the plaza would provide the necessities for their families. The land for the ranchos developed in long strips perpendicular to the river with a road connecting the community at the top edge of the river valley, which were referred to as cordilleras (objects in sequence, like a series of knots in a rope). The ranchos that developed in this dispersed, linear fashion along the river and roads were particularly susceptible to Indian raids.11 Concurrent with the Spanish resettlement of New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt, during which the Spanish granted land, established farms, and developed orchards, the east coast of America was being settled by Europeans and the science of botany was on the rise. By the 18th century, botanists and the more affluent Europeans had become obsessed with developing encyclopedias with paintings, plant identification, and descriptions of species from far flung lands, as well as collecting exotic specimens for European gardens. During this period, thousands of American trees were being shipped from the east coast to Europe. The European desire for American trees was insatiable, which was continually fueled by a growing interest in natural history and the landscaping fashion that was sweeping the nobility of Europe: the landed set required romantic, naturalistic environments into which they could place diverse, exotic plants and trees. One collector planted 10,000 American trees on his estate. Within 50 years, “[America] had furnished
7 Ibid. 8 Gardens of New Spain, p. 276. 9 D’Lyn Ford, “Colonial Heritage Orchard Preserves Old Fruit Varieties in Northern New Mexico,” 12/09/2002,
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
England with a greater variety of trees than [had] been procured from all the other parts of the world for more than a thousand years past.”12 During the period that America was a British colony, the American elm was prolifically planted in American villages and as town forests. André Michaux, a French botanist, called the elm, “the most magnificent vegetable of the temperate zone.” 13 When English settlers first arrived, they recognized the American elm as the cousin of the English elm at village greens, and because it reminded them of home, they quickly cultivated the species as the tree type to shade their new homes. Prior to the American Revolution, wealthy citizens funded large elm plantings in their towns. While elms were taking hold in villages and towns and American trees were being purchased by Europeans, the leaders of the young country, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, were cultivating and collecting their own specimens for their estates. They had a profound interest in botany and understanding the trees of their young country. To better understand the resources of the continent, in 1803, Lewis and Clark were chosen to spend three years exploring America. Jefferson had insisted that Lewis take lessons in botany before they set out, as documenting natural history was a critical component of the mission. The team sent home numerous specimens, including the Osage orange.14 After independence from Spain, the Mexican government encouraged trade with the U.S. In response to the new economic potential, on September 1, 1821, Captain William Becknell left Franklin, Missouri with four companions and goods to trade. He arrived in Santa Fe on November 16 and the endeavor provided him with an enormous profit. His trip began what became known as the Santa Fe Trail. In 1825, the U.S. government negotiated a right-of-way through Osage territory and that action officially established the trail as a national highway. Opening the Santa Fe Trail unlocked a vast economic opportunity and many new cultural influences for New Mexico. An article in the Albuquerque Journal reprinted an account of a traveler on the Santa Fe Trail. During his trip he realized that the vast plain included no trees until he came to a water source. He saw trees at streams that included “willow, poplar, cotton trees [cottonwood], elm, oak, wild plum, and a few fruit bushes, wormwood, and artemis.” 15 In larger river valleys he saw chestnuts, ash, Chinese lilac, mesquite, and willow, but noted that there wasn’t any undergrowth other than long grass. The traveler’s account was of a great solitary expanse with buffalo, panther, antelope, otter, beaver, turkey, grouse, quail, and partridge.16 As immigrants were moving into New Mexico, exotic trees were taking over the east coast of the U.S. In the early 19th century, the obsession with collecting exotic species took root in America. The affluent who were interested in botanical gardens, traveled afar and sent trees home and shared trees between themselves. Trees that were brought back included the Ginkgo biloba, paper mulberry, sycamore maple, Lombardy poplar, and ailanthus. The ailanthus and ginkgo were hardy and resistant to pollution, and because of these qualities, they became prodigious
12 Eric Rutkow, American Canopy: Trees, Forest, and the Making of a Nation, (New York: Scribner, 2012), pp. 40-44. 13 American Canopy, pp. 218-19. 14 American Canopy, pp. 48-50. 15 Paul A.F. Walter, “Yesterdays In the Spanish Southwest, Sketch No. 137”, Albuquerque Journal, May 20, 1929, p. 4. 16 Ibid.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
American urban trees.17 It in fact, the ailanthus supplanted the horsechesnut, linden, and other street trees in New York City during the 1830s, because it had a large canopy and was resistant to insects; it could provide shade, but did not encourage the bugs that plagued the townhouses of New York prior to the invention of window screens. One citizen who was against the chopping down and replacement of American trees stated that uptown New York had become “completely orientalized [sic]”.18 In an effort to update the city, the native American trees had been cast aside. In addition to the import of shade trees, the U.S. government had begun to collect foreign ‘useful’ plants in 1819.19 But it wasn’t until 1836 that the federal government’s effort to bring useful plants to America took off. The effort was under the Patent Office of the State Department and in 1839, Congress appropriated funds to support the activity. That year the Navy sailed to the South Seas, with a side mission to collect plants, and three years later it returned with exotic plants that were housed in a greenhouse in Washington, D.C.20 Concurrent with the introduction of foreign plants that was increasing and becoming a cause of the federal government, urban landscapes in major cities were being altered, and native trees were being taken down. During that period, a new horticulturalist entered the picture: Andrew Jackson Downing. Downing had an incredible, enduring effect on the development of American urban landscapes, using a design philosophy that became known as the picturesque movement. 21 Downing had published A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America in 1841. At the time, newspapers noted the irony that cities would cut down all their trees, and then name streets after them. In response to the lack of trees, Downing subscribed to the European aristocratic landscape design that had been so dependent upon the acquisition of American trees. He developed the principals into an American aesthetic and espoused a naturalistic setting that relied on “…artifice to imitate an ideal, almost imagined, wilderness.”22 Of the utmost importance in his design philosophy was the inclusion of trees. The passion for trees and development of naturalistic landscapes was spreading across the U.S. and into new city parks, zoos, and streetscapes. For it to develop in New Mexico, there was first a vast area of land that had to be tamed.
17 Urban Forests, pp. 7-8. 18 Urban Forests, pp. 8-9. 19 Knowles A. Ryerson, “History and Significance of the Foreign Plant Introduction Work of the United States Department of Agriculture,” Agricultural History, Vol. 7, No. 3 (July 1933): 113. 20 “Foreign Plant Introduction Work of the United States,” pp. 116. In 1843, the U.S. Patent Office distributed 12,000 packets of seeds, and in 1848, a formal international seed exchange system was begun. The next year the operation was transferred from the Patent Office to the Department of the Interior. 21 Urban Forests, p. 5; American Canopy, pp. 48-50; and Philip Pregill and Nancy Volkman. Landscapes in History: Design and Planning in the Western Tradition, (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993), pp. 402-407. 22 American Canopy, pp. 85-87.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
4.0 TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENT AND NURSERIES (1850-1879)
The Territory of New Mexico was organized on September 9, 1850. A few months before this new standing, in July, the first mail stage coach traveled to New Mexico on the Santa Fe Trail. The trail also began to provide freighting service that included about 500 wagons and 5,000 animals for each trip.23 While New Mexico was being developed as a territory of the U.S. with increased immigration of Anglo-Americans via the Santa Fe Trail, landscape architects back east continued to promote romantic and picturesque principals in landscape design, which reflected nature in a pastoral setting of trees to take advantage of the natural contours/geography of the landscape.24 In fact, this type of design eventually spread to parks throughout the U.S. As part of the movement, Downing had also espoused the planting of trees throughout cities: …if our ancestors found it wise and necessary to cut down vast forests, it is all the more needful that their descendants should plant trees…The first duty of an inhabitant of forlorn neighborhoods…is to use all possible influence to have the streets planted with trees.25 This type of landscape spread throughout New England and town greens were lined with the American elm as communities followed the picturesque ideal with the ideal American tree. This movement took hold with a focus on nationalism that swept through President Andrew Jackson’s U.S. At the time, Italian Lombardy poplar and Chinese ailanthus were no longer acceptable for cities; new plantings had to be American. By the end of the 1800s, the elm had ‘completely colonized’ New England.26 Although the American elm had conquered New England, its fate would not be the same in the west. A larger effect in New Mexico would be made by a French member of the Catholic faith. During the Mexican War, the Catholic church had been considering creating a bishopric for New Mexico. After the war, on July 19, 1850 Pope Pius IX established the vicariate apostolic of New Mexico and four days later issued a papal bull that named Father John Baptist Lamy––who had been born in France and was currently serving the church in Covington, Kentucky––as the bishop.27 When Lamy arrived in Santa Fe, he found a town “with the appearance of untended poverty––the color of dust over all, the crumble of dried mud between the annual seasons of replastering with new, wet earth, the straggle of animals loose in the earthen alleys, the meagre flyblown markets.”28 There was a distinct lack of education, the churches were constructed of mud, and the greatest concern of the citizens of New Mexico at the time was the continual Indian raids. All of this was overlaid with territorial boundary disputes with Mexico.
23 Kenneth Fordyce, “Early Transportation,” June 17, 1939, p. 3, Works Project Administration Collection, File #127, on file at New Mexico State Records Center & Archives. 24 American Canopy, pp. 89-90. 25 Urban Forests, p. 9. 26 American Canopy, pp. 220. 27 Paul Horgan, Lamy of Santa Fe: His Life and Times, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975), pp. 70-75. 28 Lamy of Santa Fe, p. 117.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
In 1862, a mechanism that would affect land ownership and the landscape of New Mexico was enacted: U.S. Congress passed the Homestead Act. Under this act, any citizen who had never born arms against the U.S. government, was the head of family, and was over 21 could obtain 160 acres of land after five years by building a “12-by-14” dwelling and growing crops.29 It required continuous residency and paying a registration fee of $26-34 (a value of over $1,000 today). Alternatively, the land could be acquired by paying $1.25 per acre after 6 months of residence (approximately $40/acre in today’s dollar or $6,400 for the entire 160-acre parcel). Under the first, lower cost scenario, after five years, the resident could file for a patent by submitting proof of residency and improvements to the local land office. The local office would then submit the paperwork with a final certificate of eligibility to the General Land Office in Washington, D.C.30 A decade earlier the U.S. had acquired 525,000 square miles of land and now that land was open to anyone who could immigrate, withstand the conditions, and settle it. While the land in New Mexico had become open to settlers, Lamy was developing his bishopric in Santa Fe. As part of that he felt that gardens and architecture were important. Although the Spanish had planted and cultivated fruit trees in New Mexico, by the time that Lamy arrived in Santa Fe during the early 1850s, virtually none of the trees had survived.31 To alleviate the lack of trees, he planned a garden to the south and east of the adobe church. Lamy relied on the grandeur he knew in Europe, so his garden was designed in a romantic, flowing manner with flowers, shrubs, and fruit and ornamental trees. It was to be a contemplative and civilized place, two things Lamy felt that Santa Fe was lacking when he arrived. Around the time he was planting his garden, botanical gardens and nurseries had begun to develop on the east coast. In the late 1800s, these botanical garden/nurseries began to appear near populated areas, but purchasing plants remained in the realm of specialists: botanists and horticulturalists working for cities or well-off clients. In Santa Fe, by default because he was focused on creating grace and had a spring and the land to work with, Lamy’s garden became a version of this. The garden was lined with adobe walls with a main entrance of carved granite and it included a fountain; sundial; formal walkways lined with trees, plants and arbors; meandering walks that led through flowers with benches in shady areas; and views to Fort Marcy and the Jemez Mountains. The natural spring at the south end fed a pond that spanned over an acre. The pond included two islands with bridges leading to them. The water was filled with trout and there was a small area where fish were raised, the shores were lined with flowers, and water lilies floated on the surface.32 Lamy planted much of the garden on his own and would bring wild flowers to his cultivated beds to ensure there would be color throughout the warm weather. He imported garden stock from Auvergne, France and brought trees and seeds over the Santa Fe Trail when he was returning from trips to the East. He planted fruit trees and continually grafted and cultivated to create larger, better fruit. Each of these trees would cost him $10-15 with an additional $10 per pound
29 The law did not specify whether this was in feet or inches, so some saw this as a loophole to build a very small structure and still meet the requirements. 30 Jeffry B. Morris and Richard B. Morris. Encyclopedia of American History, Seventh Edition, Revised and Updated. (New York: Harpers Collins Publishers, Inc., 1996), p. 612. 31 “Environmental Change in Colonial New Mexico.” 32 Lamy of Santa Fe, pp. 410-411.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
freight fee to transport them to Santa Fe. Although they were incredibly expensive, it was well worth it, the espaliered pear tree produced 115 pears one season; the cherry tree could bear two crops of black oxheart cherries per season; the peaches weighed up to 5 ½ ounces each; and the plums were as big as a ‘hen’s egg.’ In an effort to increase the gardens in the town, whenever he shared a peach with a visitor he would request that they would plant the pit.33 The bishop also cultivated shade trees. His garden included elm, maple, cottonwood, locust, and weeping and osier willow. In the shade of his garden retreat, he also planted smaller fruit and a vegetable garden. He brought Malaga grapes from California, which had been transported north by Spanish Colonial missionaries. He planted red and white currants, as well as all manner of vegetables. Although the garden was a spiritual retreat for Lamy, he shared it with the citizens of Santa Fe and visitors. He said that the purpose of the garden was to “…demonstrate what could be done to bring the graces and comforts of the earth to a land largely barren, rocky, and dry.”34 He wasn’t content with having one garden in town, so to help others create gardens, he would provide gifts of saplings, seeds, fruits, and vegetables from the garden. He was sharing grace with his fellow citizens. On one trip across the Santa Fe Trail, Lamy carried horsechesnuts in a pail of water and transported over 100 elm saplings from the east to Santa Fe. He gave these trees to the citizens of Santa Fe, so the town would have shade. Undoubtedly, some were planted at the plaza. One day, the wife of Santa Fe merchant Spiegelberg, looked out her window and found the bishop planting a pair of willow saplings at her front gate. After he finished planting, he blessed the trees. Lamy also brought English walnut trees and helped to set out over 1,000 fruit trees in town.35 It may seem incredible that a man who was in charge of a diocese that had spanned over Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado had time to focus on the aesthetics of gardening, but it was an integral part of his mission to bring spiritual calm and grace to a town that had been fraught with poverty and fear of Indian raids when he arrived. Trees and the garden were a critical component in Lamy’s view to civilize a land where “man’s works were largely the result of mixing water, earth, straw, and the heat of the sun, shaped by the palm of the hand, whether to become shelter, chapel, or cathedral.”36 Shade emerged under the touch of Lamy, and at a time when communication with the rest of the world was difficult and travel was both difficult and incredibly expensive. During the mid-1800s in other areas of the U.S., seed stores began to open, and tree imports rose. Tung-oil trees were brought from Japan; sesame seed, carob, and pistache trees were brought from Palestine; and date palm, live, and cork oak, ornamental trees, and many other plants traveled to American shores.37 In 1862, as the Civil War broke out, the Department of Agriculture was established, and one of its missions was “…the collection, testing and distribution of seeds and plants.”38 That same year Congress passed the Morrill Act that established land-grant colleges. These were institutions that were granted federal lands that were
33 Ibid. 34 Lamy of Santa Fe, p. 412. 35 Ibid. 36 Lamy of Santa Fe, p. 333. 37 “Foreign Plant Introduction Work of the United States,” p. 117. 38 “Foreign Plant Introduction Work of the United States,” p. 118.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
to be sold to endow the college and the mission of the new colleges was to focus on teaching agriculture, science, military science, and engineering. At the end of the Civil War, settlers moved west, and the land-grant colleges began to develop. Twenty years later, state experiment stations would be connected with the institutions. In 1868, trees arrived in Santa Fe via the first documented agent and nursery in New Mexico. J. Blaisdell, an agent of the Commercial Nurseries in Rochester, New York arrived in Santa Fe via stage coach. He notified the newspaper that he was taking orders for trees would return to Rochester to supervise the packing of fruit trees and plants to bring them to Santa Fe for sale.39 When he returned, he set up a nursery called Plummer Blaisdell & Co. It is unknown whether Blaisdell sold trees to the intrepid Lamy, but it is likely that they overestimated the market, as by 1870 the company had put their nursery into the hands of their lawyer and through the newspaper notified Santa Fe residents that they could purchase their plants directly from him. A year later, Plummer, Blaisdell & Co. was trying to sell the nursery, which at that time included over 5,000 apple trees, 800 pear & plum, 200 peach and apricot, 500 cherry, 200 Siberian crab, 500 maple and mountain ash, some ornamental trees, and 50 quince and grape.40 While a decade earlier, when Lamy arrived in Santa Fe there had been but a few fruit trees, there were now thousands of fruit and shade trees available for planting. As Lamy’s garden was developing and the first New Mexico nursery was being established, homesteaders were arriving to New Mexico, and a gentleman in the Las Cruces area began to cultivate fruit trees to sell to the newcomers. An article in the Santa Fe New Mexican pondered that folks back east may have cultivated only the choicest varieties of fruit, but wondered whether they could exceed the skills of Col. Sam J. Jones of the Mesilla area who had imported the best select varieties of fruit trees, grafted them at his nursery, and was providing new fruit to the ‘intelligent’ farmers of southern New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Mexico. Jones cultivated apple, pear, peach, almond, apricot, and cherry trees, as well as raspberry, gooseberry, currants and strawberries.41 While a new nursery was being developed in southern New Mexico, J. Sterling Morton, a Nebraska homesteader with a passion for horticulture, delivered an impassioned speech about planting trees and then set forth a resolution that resulted in Nebraska establishing Arbor Day on April 10, 1872. During that first Arbor Day, two million trees were planted.42 By the mid-1880s some form of Arbor Day had spread to most states. In the 1890s it was said, “No observance ever sprang into existence so rapidly, favorably, permanently, and now so near universally throughout the whole civilized world as that of ‘Arbor Day.’”43 Morton believed that this was because Arbor Day was not a day about the past, but rather it was a day about the future. Before Arbor Day had been established, in Lamy’s Santa Fe, every day was Arbor Day. He was continually handing out saplings and seeds from his garden, and planting trees with his own hands. In addition to planting trees for his neighbors, by 1865, trees had been planted in the
39 The Santa Fe New Mexican, August 18, 1868, p. 1. 40 “Nursery for Sale,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, January 11, 1871, p. 1. 41 “Pomological: La Mesilla, New Mexico, March 4, 1871,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, March 11, 1871, p. 21. 42 American Canopy, pp. 131-133. 43 Ibid. In 1891, the governor of New Mexico Territory established Arbor Day under New Mexico, chapter 35, 1-3.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
Santa Fe plaza. Although not documented, it is highly likely that these trees were stock that came across the Santa Fe Trail with Lamy. At that time, the plaza included diagonal and rectilinear pathways, with agricultural rows of plants between them, but by 1876, the plaza was described as: “a public square with…its shaded walks…is the very acme of perfective bliss to the minds of many.”44 At that time, Lamy’s garden had matured and included rare flowers, at least 50 varieties of fruit trees, and nurseries with saplings. The author of a Santa Fe New Mexican article about the garden noted that he was immensely pleased with the “appearance of everything, particularly with the smooth, glow and healthy appearance of the body of the trees, and especially with the remarkable quantities of fruit hanging to all their limbs.” 45 By then, the walls were climbing with Malaga grape vines and evergreens had been added. The garden had developed into a sylvan forest in the midst of Santa Fe. While Lamy brought trees to Santa Fe and Col. Jones was bringing trees to southern New Mexico, an Ed Branford was cultivating berry plants and ‘choice’ fruit trees in Albuquerque. Branford felt that his trees would be better than those that were brought from the eastern U.S. because they would be acclimated to the New Mexico environment. To ensure his trees would sell, he planned on marking them at a lower price than those that were imported.46 Nurseries were developing in the larger towns and trees were being planted in those communities. As Lamy was working on his mission to civilize Santa Fe and nurseries were emerging in larger towns, ranching was becoming important to the development of New Mexico. Sixteen years after the area became a territory, large scale cattle drives began to move through, buffalo hunters decimated the native buffalo, the Army moved the Indians from the plains, and homesteads and ranches began to appear on the landscape. In most cases, a ranch would become an oasis with the only trees for miles around. Generally, the groves that ranchers planted were transplanted cottonwood and other riparian genera from nearby streams and rivers. Some ranches were also supplemented with fruit trees. The most significant of these ranches to urban tree history was the ranching area that became Roswell at the junction of the Pecos and Hondo rivers and had been a camping place on the eastern plains for centuries. In the American west, it became a grazing and watering spot for cattlemen on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, which provided beef to Fort Sumner. The site included cattle pens and two adobe buildings. In 1869, Van C. Smith––who hailed from Omaha, Nebraska and was a professional gambler––arrived in the area with a business partner, Aaron O. Wilburn. They acquired the buildings at the river junction and operated them as a general store, post office, and rooms for paying guests to stop overnight. Smith filed the land claim on March 4, 1871 and he chose his father’s name for the settlement: Roswell. Six years later, in 1877, Captain
44 Photo by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, “Santa Fe looking east at center of plaza, ca. 1865-66,” on file at Museum of New Mexico, photo number 87929; and Nicholas Brown, photo of Santa Fe plaza, on file at Museum of New Mexico, photo number 82867.10-4. “A Fairy Scene, The Archbishop’s Orchard and Garden––Fruits––Flowers–– Shade Trees––Vegetables––the Lake––Cuba, etc.,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, July 27, 1876, p. 1. 45 “A Fairy Scene.” 46 “From Fort Selden to Santa Fe,” Weekly New Mexican, February 20, 1877, p. 1.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
Joseph Calloway Lea purchased Smith’s claim and he and his family owned the town for the next decade.47 A forest was about to be created on the eastern plains of New Mexico.
47 Francis L. and Roberta B. Fugate, Roadside History of New Mexico, Missoula: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1989, pp. 295-97.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
5.0 RAILROADS, AGENTS AND NURSERIES (1879-1912)
Railroads first came to New Mexico in the 1880s as part of U.S. expansion to grow the economy and settle new territory. They brought sweeping cultural changes, thousands of trees, and made a lasting impact on the landscape. During this period, in the larger towns, local nurseries began to grow and competitors arrived. But even as local sources developed, agents of nurseries from afar were rigorously pursuing the sale of trees and seeds to New Mexico farmers and residents. Nurseries from New York, Colorado, Kansas, California, and Texas were all vying for the New Mexico market. Most would hire local agents that would travel around the state with catalogues to take orders for product that would ship in the spring. The local nurseries would raise fruit and shade trees, and vegetables in gardens and greenhouses for sale to farmers and city dwellers. Imported trees and multitudinous varieties of fruit trees were delivered to Las Vegas, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Socorro, Deming, and Las Cruces during the Territorial era. The imports extended to other towns, but the focus of the dealers was transporting their stock at the primary transcontinental railroad delivery points. Railroads required division points and subdivisions to maintain the engines and rails. A division was a length of rail under one superintendent with a large locomotive maintenance yard at either end. Within a division there were a series of subdivisions with an associated crew that maintained a section of rail line. As railroads were being established, they either placed the division points and subdivisions in existing towns, if they could negotiate a good rate for the land, or they would develop entirely new railroad towns that met their needs. As a result, many New Mexico towns were created when rail lines were built through the Territory.48 Accompanying the development of railroads throughout the U.S. was the development of agriculture. Agriculture was critical to the settlement of the West and the economic health of the railroads. In fact, succeeding at agriculture became the “most overriding common interest of the pioneers and carriers [railroads].”49 Without agriculture, the settlers would have difficulty surviving and without goods to travel the rails to distant markets, the railroads would fail. To encourage farmers, the railroad industry developed systematic real estate marketing, provided farming advice, seeds, seedlings, purebred livestock, soil amendments, and constructed silos adjacent to tracks. They were responsible for alfalfa fields in Nebraska, orchards in Illinois, tomatoes in Mississippi, and strawberries in Louisiana. The railroad companies also planted trees to keep snow from drifting onto tracks, prevent erosion, and to beautify rural areas.50 Several railroads enacted agricultural departments within their organizations.51 As railroads opened new territory, economic activity increased, and in turn greater geographical area was affected by the new economy. Railroads spurred the first era of organized road and bridge construction and administration in the New Mexico Territory and the new roads thrust farther inland to facilitate railroad construction, settlement, and development. These new roads
48 Donald B. Robertson, Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History: The Desert States, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, (Caldwell, Ohio: The Caxton Printers, Ltd, 1986), pp. 7, 18, and 50-51. 49 Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, p. 99 50 Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, pp. 99-100. 51 In 1910, the AT&SF and Chicago, Rock Island & El Paso Railway both hired their own agricultural experts.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
would become the means by which trees were delivered to smaller communities, as well as a means by which those communities were connected to the larger world. 5.1 Transcontinental Routes and the Influx of Trees Transcontinental routes through New Mexico connected the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF) and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company (Southern Pacific) to Chicago, New Orleans, and cities in California. Goods no longer came into the Territory over the Santa Fe Trail or the Camino Real, because railroad rates were lower, shipping was faster, and the quantity and variety of trees that came into New Mexico was greater. Depots were constructed at division and subdivision points, and generally the depot became the center of activity; town residents would come to the station to see who was arriving and watch the goings-on. Depots were critical to the life of a community and it became important that the station and environs be nice. The railroads developed brick or stucco depots at county seats, which were grander than the wood stations in other counties. Many towns began to add depot parks adjacent to the stations to provide a nice entrance to the town and a place for travelers to spend some time as trains refueled and took on water.52 As the railroads were thriving in New Mexico, Congress passed the Hatch Act in 1887, which resulted in the establishment of state experimental stations that would be used to develop systematic methods of testing newly introduced plants. A few years later, the U.S. government also became concerned with the nation’s forests. The Forest Reserve Act was passed by Congress in 1891, which allowed the President of the U.S. to “set apart and reserve…public land bearing forests…or in part covered by timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations.”53 This act began the National Forest system, however, it wasn’t until 1897 that Congress passed the Forest Management Act to establish management provisions and set aside funds for the management of forest reserve lands. The lands were managed under the Department of the Interior, General Land Office.54 On June 4, 1897, President William McKinley signed the Sundry Act. One of the amendments, the Pettigrew Amendment, allowed for the care, protection, and management of forest reserves and provided an organization to manage them. One of the first General Land Office employees hired in the summer of 1897 was Gifford Pinchot, who was employed as a special forestry agent to make further investigations of the forest reserves and recommend ways to manage them.55 Pinchot’s philosophy was that the forests should be managed and used. On February 1, 1905, Pinchot unified all Federal forest administration under the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Forestry and then in July, the U.S. Forest Service was officially established.56 That same year, the Forest Service developed a nursery in New Mexico on Stephen’s Ranch three miles north of Fort Bayard, as an experiment. Two to three acres were rented by the government to plant pine, Kentucky coffee tree, and Himalayan cedar seedlings and the
52 Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, pp. 27-29. 53 Gerald W. Williams, The USDA Forest Service––The First Century, (Washington, D.C.: USDA Forest Service, Office of Communication, 2005), p. 8 54 The USDA Forest Service, p. 8. 55 The USDA Forest Service, pp. 10-11. 56 The USDA Forest Service, pp. 17-20.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
seedlings were protected with individual wire mesh structures. Ten years later, the Forest Service planted 50,000 yellow pine seedlings in the Gila National Forest using trees that had been grown at the Fort Bayard nursery. The goal of the project was to restore the Cameron watershed that had been partially denuded and was part of the watershed that supplied water to the fort site.57 Twenty years after the nursery near Fort Bayard was planted, in 1907, B.E. Fernow, Chief Division of Forestry, developed a plan to import desirable new trees for introduction to American forests. Eventually, special facilities were developed for the safeguarding from new disease and pests, included inspections and treatment of imports. At the turn of the century, there were numerous expeditions to Europe, Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and China to bring home cereal, forage, fruit, and ornamental plants, with the greatest focus on plants that would support economic pursuits. Once the exotic trees and plants were in the U.S., the endeavor was to focus on propagation and cultivation to develop resistance to pests, survival of extreme weather, and an increase in crop yields. Two of the ornamental trees that were brought back during this period that would eventually have a great impact on New Mexico were the Chinese and Siberian elm.58 5.1.1 Raton to Las Cruces On December 7, 1878, the first railroad car passed into New Mexico, near the stage forage stop of Willow Springs (now Raton). By July 1879, the AT&SF line had reached Las Vegas and speculators there had developed a railroad town grid near the tracks, but away from the Spanish Colonial plaza. During the next three years, agents for nurseries in Denver, New York, Kansas City, and California focused on Las Vegas and advertised that they could sell everything for one’s orchard, garden, lawn, and street. The agents would travel to town to take orders at hotel or bank lobbies, and all promised to have the best stock to beautify homes.59 The rail line reached Santa Fe on February 9, 1880.60 That year a S.W. Marshall in Santa Fe received a shipment of trees from the Gould Brothers nursery in Rochester, New York and stated that it was the “finest lot of fruit trees ever brought to Santa Fe.”61 Three years later, Grant Rivenburg advertised in Santa Fe that he had “Trees! Trees!! Trees!!!” In the ad, he stated that he had leased the “Archbishop Garden” that had been begun by Lamy and that his nursery had the finest lot of native grown stock in the country. The advertisement noted that he had fruit, ornamental trees, shrubs, strawberries, and many more plants.62 The garden that Lamy had nurtured for the betterment of Santa Fe had been leased by the Catholic church as a commercial
57 “Forestry Experiments at Fort Bayard,” Albuquerque Journal, August 4, 1905, p. 2; “Fort Bayard Forestry Nursery Flourishing,” Albuquerque Journal, August 28, 1906, p. 7; and “Forest Planting to Begin on Extensive Scale in Near Future,” Albuquerque Journal, January 21, 1915, p. 3. 58 “Foreign Plant Introduction Work of the United States,” pp. 124-128. 59 “Nursery Notice,” November 8, 1881, p. 4; “Fruit Trees and Shrubbery,” June 22, 1881, p. 4; “Notice to the Public,” August 5, 1881, p. 4; and “J. Rock’s Nurseries,” April 4, 1882, p. 1, all articles in the The Las Vegas Gazette. 60 David F. Myrick, New Mexico’s Railroads: A Historical Survey, Revised Edition, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), pp. 1-7. 61 “Trees for Sale,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, December 7, 1880, p. 4. 62 The Santa Fe New Mexican, March 22, 1884, p. 1.
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enterprise; although the charitable aspect had changed, the site continued to supply trees to the citizens of New Mexico’s capitol. After reaching Santa Fe and establishing Raton, AT&SF officials approached leaders of Bernalillo to obtain land to develop the town as a division point, with yards and shops, on the line. They planned on changing the small town into a ‘shining metropolis’ and the foremost city in New Mexico. Railroad engineers Kingman and Robinson stopped at Bernalillo for a private meeting and offered the going rate of $2-3 per acre for land, but the largest landowner in town, José Leandro Perea, who clearly did not like the railroad men, priced his land at $425 per acre. As a result of the brief 45-minute meeting, AT&SF chose to bypass Bernalillo and develop the yards in Albuquerque where there were already commercial facilities available to support the yards.63 As with Las Vegas, the new division point was constructed away from the original town site and a new Anglo-American brick town with Victorian architecture began to rise along the tracks. And, also mirroring Las Vegas, the town needed trees. Cottonwood cuttings were taken from the river area and planted near the Albuquerque station creating the narrow Depot Park. By 1883, the park included a fountain, gas lights, and two bronze statues. Ten years later, many of the trees were removed to make room for a new baggage room.64 By 1884, Franklin Nurseries advertised that pear, cherry, peach, currant, apple, and plum trees were for sale in Albuquerque. Franklin was not, however, a local nursery with plants grown in Albuquerque, but rather the company had a local agent, Felipe Garcia & Co. in Old Town Albuquerque that sold the trees on behalf of the nursery.65 It was a change from the traveling salesman to a local presence for an out-of-Territory nursery. The AT&SF line arrived in Socorro in 1880, resulting in a population growth from 1,200 to 4,500 that included people of all nationalities. There was a general rift between the residents that had been in town before the railroad arrived and the immigrants that arrived after and wanted their town to be the most magnificent in the West.66 By 1883, a local nursery had been established by Thomas J. Fleeman and he traveled New Mexico to sell his trees.67 By the 1880s, the Socorro town plaza had been fenced in and planted with saplings. Because local funding was required to make improvements to the town, Dr. L.E. Kittrel became involved in maintaining the plaza and he helped to update the fencing as the trees matured.68 Las Cruces was established in 1848 when the first justice of the peace for Doña Ana County asked the U.S. Army to set up a new town to alleviate the crowding in Doña Ana that was being caused by Anglo-American immigration to the new territory. The town included farms, nearby ranching, and mining at the Organ Mountains. Cowboys, miners, and soldiers all came to town to
63 Marc Simmons, Albuquerque: A Narrative History, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982), p. 215 and 217; Francis L. and Roadside History of New Mexico, p. 101; and no author, Application for Registration, New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties, State Planning Office, Santa Fe, “Las Cocinitas”, SR-37. 64 Albuquerque, p. 343; and “Track and Train,” Las Vegas Daily Optic, December 17, 1890, p. 6. 65 “Fruit Trees. The Franklin Nurseries, Agency at Albuquerque, NM,” Albuquerque Journal, March 18, 1884, p. 2. 66 Myra Ellen Jenkins and Spencer Wilson, “Socorro: Facts not Fancy,”
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let off steam: shooting in the street and hangings were common until the railroad arrived in 1881.69 Seven years later, the community was concerned with what types of trees to plant. A circular from the USDA, Office of the Forest Commissioner identified types for three different locales in the U.S.: plains, native areas, and irrigated areas.70 5.1.2 Tucumcari to Gallup In 1881, the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad (A&P) was constructed across New Mexico. It connected with the AT&SF south of Albuquerque, at a junction at Isleta Pueblo. The Atlantic & Pacific Railroad contracted with three brothers to construct track from Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico to Needles, California. The three brothers were Augustus, Lewis, and John Grants and they hired 4,000 men (mostly Irish), used 2,000 mules, established a camp near a homestead that was referred to as “Grants Camp.”71 This area had first been established in 1872 by Jesus Blea who filed for a homestead on the south side of San Jose Creek and called his claim Los Alamitos (little cottonwoods). In 1883, the rail line had extended to California and connected with the Southern Pacific at Needles. After the railroad was complete, the Grants Camp became a coaling stop called, “Grant Station.” A small town to the west of Grant Station had originally been an Overland Mail station, but the railroad quickly replaced stage coaches, freight wagons, and the express riders. A year after the railroad was constructed, the town included 22 saloons, two dance halls, a population who primarily lived in tents. The town had expanded to accommodate the westward moving Grant brothers’ 4,000 Irish railroad workers, as well as lumberjacks, miners, and cowboys from the surrounding who all came to partake in the good times. As the town was developing, David L. Gallup was the paymaster for the Atlantic & Pacific and the men who worked the railroad would say, “I am going to Gallup’s [to collect wages].”72 When the U.S. established a post office there, they used the common name and the town became known as Gallup. In 1897, the Atlantic & Pacific was purchased by the AT&SF in a foreclosure sale and at that time the western rail line ran from Mojave to Isleta, where it picked up the north/south AT&SF railroad.73 At the east side of the Territory, a railroad that would eventually link with the one the Grant brothers was building was being constructed. Tucumcari was established to support the Chicago, Rock Island & El Paso Railway (CRI&P) railroad.74 By 1907, there were 20 small towns scattered about the area near Tucumcari, made from those that were coming to homestead and be near the rail line. During the same period, to the southwest of Tucumcari, the Forest Service developed the Rio Bonito Tree Nursery near Fort Stanton, to support the settlers in the area by
69 Roadside History of New Mexico, pp. 40-42; and Anthony Pennock, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Mesquite Original Townsite District of Las Cruces,” May 10, 1980, Section 8, Pages 1-3. 70 “Growing Artificial Forests, Important Circular Issued by the Forest Commissioner,” Rio Grande Republican, March 10, 1888, p. 1. 71 Robert Julyan, The Place Names of New Mexico, Revised Edition, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), p. 154. 72 Roadside History of New Mexico, p. 384. 73 Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, p. 75. 74 Place Names, p. 171; There are several stories about the name, but it seems that the most likely is that it is based on a Comanche word that means “to lie in wait,” as Tucumcari Mountain was a place that the Comanche war parties used as a lookout.
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supplying trees to conserve the watershed.75 Farther west on the CRI&P line, Don Celso Baca owned land that included what would become the site of Santa Rosa. In 1901, the CRI&P connected with the Southern Pacific at the town. During that time, there were 4,000 construction workers in the area, a proliferation of saloons, and the trees in town were native piñon that appear to have been in place before the town buildings were constructed.76 5.1.3 Lordsburg to El Paso In the southwest part of the New Mexico Territory, Lordsburg was established in 1880 as a subdivision point for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of New Mexico, a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific that was headquartered in San Francisco. To gain dominance in western commerce, the company was developing a rail line that would run from San Francisco to Galveston, and eventually New Orleans.77 The Southern Pacific Railroad Company of New Mexico was incorporated in April of 1879 and in September of 1880, construction began on the main line that was to run from the Arizona Territory border to El Paso. The Southern Pacific subsidiary developed three points across New Mexico: Lordsburg, Deming, and Aden. By October of 1880, the railroad company had established service between Tucson and Lordsburg, and by December, the line extended to Deming.78 When the railroad reached what was to become Lordsburg––halfway between Tucson and El Paso and three miles north of a significant mining locality––the area was “…but knee-high grass, cactus luxuriating, and coyotes in swarms serenading [the railroad’s] advent.”79 But, as the local newspaper reported four years after the Southern Pacific created the railroad subdivision point, “…the locomotive carries the torch of progress and where ever it goes magical changes ensue.”80 After December 1880, Deming became known as the ‘City of Windmills’ as residents worked to have water, and by 1891, the Deming area had developed many orchards.81 When the Southern Pacific had first arrived, the station was called Mimbres Junction, but soon it was known as “Deming,” after Mary Ann Deming who was married to Charles Crocker, one of the Big Four railroad industrialists. Although the town was named after her, Mary Ann and her husband never lived in Deming, they were residents of Sacramento, California and important in the Bay Area. 5.2 Regional Routes and Irrigation The transcontinental routes resulted in the development of towns and cities in New Mexico, and had an inadvertent impact on the land that comes with economic development. The regional routes had a massive and purposeful effect on rapid landscape development. These railroads
75 “Forest Service Finishes Rio Bonito Tree Nursery,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, June 7, 1907, p. 1 76 Santa Rosa photographs in Adella Collier Collection, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives; the trees in the photographs are clearly piñon. 77 Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, pp. 81, 104, and 236. 78 Chris P. Fox, “The First Railroad Bridge Across the Rio Grande,” Password, The El Paso County Historical Society, Vol. XXV, No. 1, (El Paso, Texas, Spring 1980): 81; Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, pp. 81, 104, and 236. 79 “Lordsburg: Its Resources, Its Prospects, Its Men of Merit,” Western Liberal, Volume IX, No. 5, December 13, 1895, p. 1. 80 Ibid. 81 “Territorial Topics,” Las Vegas Daily Optic, April 22, 1891, p. 3.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico supported agricultural development, zoos, and parks, all of which resulted in the planting of trees. 5.2.1 Pecos Valley, Irrigation, and a Railroad The primary activity in the Pecos Valley during the 1880s was ranching and it brought not only neighboring Texan ranchers, but entrepreneurs from back East. The Eddy brothers were from New York and traveled to the Seven Rivers, New Mexico (near Artesia) to go into the cattle business. Almost immediately, they realized that there was also the potential for large-scale water reclamation in the region that could support farming. In 1887, Charles teamed with Pat Garrett (who had recently killed Billy the Kid) and began the Pecos Valley Land and Ditch Company. During that time, U.S. government policy was to encourage private development of reclamation projects and private developers had ‘free rein’ to develop the economic and engineering possibilities.82 In 1888, a new Anglo-American ranch was established in Lincoln County to the north of Roswell and about 1½ miles from what would become the center of Portales. The H Bar W ranch was settled by Dr. Caleb Winfrey who brought his sister, Mrs. Easley, and his brother Hadley to the west in hopes that it would help Hadley’s health. The family planted peach trees and a vegetable garden, as well as cottonwood to provide shade. The first trees died, but the family was determined to have shade and dug new holes and planted new trees, which ultimately survived. For years, the cottonwood grove at Winfrey’s H Bar W ranch were the only trees in the Pecos Valley.83 In 1891, Nathan Jaffe discovered that unlike many neighboring towns, Roswell had plenty of water, because it was over an artesian water source (Figure 1). After this discovery, the area around the town opened to farming and in town streetscapes and landscapes began to miraculously bloom with cottonwood and willow.84 At the Goss Military Institute in town, a pleasant landscape developed with a circular artesian fountain surrounded by a lawn with a grove of cottonwoods that was set adjacent to parade and drill grounds. The school also included a small orchard with a zoological garden.85 While other communities were corralling surface water to support the development of agriculture and parks, the community of Roswell was over an artesian water source and could draw copious amounts of water to support their needs.
Figure 1. Artesian well at Roswell Source: Adella Collier Collection, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives
82 Mark Hufstetler and Lon Johnson, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Carlsbad Irrigation District,” Section 8, Page 1-2. 83 Jean M. Burroughs, Editor, Roosevelt County History and Heritage, (Portales, New Mexico: Bishop Printing Company, 1975), pp. 36-37. 84 Historic photographs of Roswell at Palace of the Governors photo archives. 85 “Early History of New Mexico Military Institute.”
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Initial work on Eddy’s Pecos Valley Land and Ditch Company irrigation system began near the growing town of Roswell, with smaller canals in a community to the south. The community we now know as Carlsbad had been organized in 1888 as a town called “Eddy” by John A. and Charles B. Eddy. Not only were the brothers vested in irrigation and the development of a new town, they were promoting the construction of a railroad and developing town sites along the envisioned rail corridor.86 As ranches and towns were taking hold of the eastern New Mexico plains, the Pecos Valley Land and Ditch Company was taking on new investors, which included James John Hagerman, a Colorado Springs capitalist that was involved with railroads, mining, and iron processing. In 1890, to complete the Eddy brothers’ vision and capitalize on the farming that would result from providing water for irrigation, Hagerman established the Pecos Valley Railroad that would provide shipping for the agricultural products that were produced in the valley.87 Hagerman’s Pecos Valley Railway was constructed northward from Pecos, Texas, which linked the new rail line to the Texas & Pacific, which connected the new town of Eddy and its planned million acres of irrigable land to markets in El Paso, Dallas, and New Orleans.88 5.2.2 Santa Rosa through Carrizozo and Alamogordo The townsite for Alamogordo was purchased by J. Arthur and Charles B. Eddy in 1898. The brothers had previously purchased a spring from Oliver M. Lee that included a pool of water and a grove of cottonwoods that created 150’ of shade. They envisioned using the area to provide water for a railroad they were planning. After establishing Eddy and working on irrigation in the Pecos Valley with Hagerman, they became promoters of a rail line for the Pecos Valley and Tularosa Basin.89 Charles convinced some Eastern capitalists to travel to New Mexico to see the potential line. In May of 1897, the investors provided the capital and that same month Eddy incorporated the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad (EP&NE). A year later, Alamogordo was purchased, and trading goods, ranching, and lumbering became the primary business of the new town. When the brothers founded Alamogordo, and constructed the train station, they also invested in a park. It is likely that it was placed at the original spring, as it already provided a pool and cottonwood shade trees. They brought swans, ducks, and deer and created a zoo to serve as an attraction for passengers as they waited for the train to refuel. By 1902, cottonwood trees in Alamogordo began to die.90 It isn’t clear if these were street trees or trees within the park. Even with the loss, the zoo eventually grew into a 13-acre park. At the time the Alamogordo park was developed, Americans were looking for romantic landscapes with formal promenades through which they could meander, and railroads and American cities were providing them.91 And the Eddy brothers provided it for Alamogordo.
86 Place Names, p. 27; Roadside History of New Mexico, pp 328-330. 87 “Carlsbad Irrigation District,” Page 2. 88 William D. Middleton, George M. Smerk, and Roberta L. Diehl, Editors, Encyclopedia of North American Railroads, (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007), p. 1180. 89 Place Names, p. 4.; and Place Names, Revised Edition, pp. 8-9. 90 “Alamogordo,” Albuquerque Citizen, October 22, 1902, p. 6. 91 Landscapes in History, pp. 491 and 513.
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The Eddy brothers established their EP&NE division point onto the plains at Carrizozo. In 1906, the town was platted by the Alamogordo Improvement Company (a subsidiary of EP&NE) as ‘Carrizo’, which is the Spanish vernacular for reed grasses. James Allcook, foreman at a nearby cattle ranch, added the extra ‘zo’ to signify the extensive abundance of the reed grass. That same year Ira O. Wetmore, a nearby rancher from Iowa, took over the platting project with an entity called the Carrizozo Townsite Company, laid the town out on a grid, and began to develop.92 In 1908, the citizens of Carrizozo worked with the town development company to plan a park between El Paso Avenue and the railroad tracks. In anticipation, the company cleared deteriorated buildings.93
Figure 2. Alameda Park in 1907 Source: Alamogordo News, August 17, 1907
5.2.3 Aztec and Urban Acequias Aztec was planned in 1880, adjacent to the Rio de los Animas, and was named after the Anglo- American name for the nearby ruins. Some of the first farmers near Aztec were George and Frank Coe, who had been part of the Lincoln County Regulators, and associated with Billy the Kid. After the Lincoln County War, around 1884, they had moved north and rented land in the San Juan Basin. They had left the trials of Lincoln County behind and with their new land, they planted wheat and brought the first thresher to the area. The town of Aztec developed into a trading center for farmers and ranchers. As the population increased, a group of citizens bought 40 acres to establish the Aztec Town Company. After which, the new community determined that there was a need for a water system in town. In 1889, they established the Los Animas irrigation ditch that was specifically meant to support the development of orchards, shade trees, and gardens. The Aztec ditch reflected the acequia system and cultural structure that had been established by the Spanish. The community constructed laterals from the main canal that extended to each street, …so that homes would have irrigating water for their gardens…these ditches were neighborhood projects built to cover the lands of the owners under a share agreement
92 Roadside History of New Mexico, p. 336. 93 Encyclopedia of American History, p. 371; and John Murphey, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Carrizozo Commercial Historic District.” September 15, 2015, Section 9, Page 30.
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with water proportioned to the amount of land that each shareholder held for irrigation…each shareholder contributed labor according to his assessed share.”94 Although the town was officially established in 1890, it wasn’t until 1905 that it was incorporated under the laws of the New Mexico Territory. That same year, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG) arrived. The railroad was narrow gauge and connected the mines of Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, and transported agricultural products as well. During the height of agriculture around Aztec, residents of Aztec proclaimed the area as the best apple country on earth. Because of this, at that time, the D&RG was named ‘The Red Apple Flyer.’95 5.2.4 The Belen Cutoff and Clovis The A&P-constructed line at Tucumcari and Santa Rosa was connected with the east/west AT&SF route at Belen, when the AT&SF created the ‘Belen Cutoff.’ Construction on the new line began in 1905 by the Eastern Railway Company of New Mexico under contract with the AT&SF to build track from Texico to the Rio Puerco. During this construction, in 1906, Clovis was established. Once the east/west rail line was operating, shacks sprouted up at the cutoff and the railroad siding became known as Riley’s Switch. Originally, Portales was targeted as the division point for the new line; however, as had happened in Bernalillo, representatives from the town were labeled by the AT&SF as ‘greedy’ and the officials moved the division point to Riley’s Switch.96 After the division point was established and the town was named Clovis, the new settlement became part of the east/west railroad across the U.S., as well as a north/south track that ran through Roswell, Carlsbad and into Pecos, Texas.97 The new railroad town of Clovis ultimately became a city that was surrounded by one of the largest crop production areas in New Mexico. 5.3 Agents and Nurseries With the plethora of railroad construction, irrigation, and nursery sales agents, New Mexico had developed the need for an organized group that understood cultivation, agriculture, and trees. As a result, the New Mexico Horticultural Society had been formed to promote practical knowledge on cultivation and packing/marketing grain, fruits, and vegetables. The president noted that folks in Lincoln County had purchased 13,870 fruit trees and shrubs from a nursery in Council Bluffs, Iowa; Santa Fe had set out 10,000 fruit trees that year; it seemed like Socorro would plant about the same number; and that, of course, the ‘fruit-and-flower section’ in the Mesilla valley would also plant large numbers. He also advised that Bernalillo County, the Animas valley, and Tierra Amarilla were seeing unprecedented numbers of fruit trees being planted.98 Mr. A.S. Clough, a representative from the Council Bluff’s nursery had been delivering trees throughout the Territory and estimated that he would sell 100,000 trees that year. He stated that “the territory
94 Aztec Museum Association, “Historic Aztec: Self-Guided Walking & Biking Tours,” 2010. 95 San Juan County Index, April 20, 1906, p. 4; and “Farmington Branch Still Tied Up,” Albuquerque Journal, November 22, 1911, p. 6. 96 Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, p. 208; and Place Names, p. 37. 97 Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, p. 208. 98 Arthur Boyle, “Horticultural, President Boyle’s Address to the Fruit Growers of New Mexico,” The Weekly New Mexican, April 15, 1886, p. 4.
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must eventually become a grand fruit-producing country, and [Council Bluffs was] striving to catch [their] full share of the trade.”99 Nursery agents were crawling across the New Mexico Territory and making record numbers of sales to towns and farmers. By 1887, the distinction between a sales agent for a nursery outside the New Mexico Territory and a nursery with locally grown stock began to become important. Agents were quick to clarify that their trees were imports, and the locals capitalized on promoting products that were ‘acclimated’ to New Mexico.100 The distinction did not seem to slow general sales to New Mexicans by outside companies, but it probably did give local nurseries an advantage in their home towns. By 1890, Grant Rivenburg, who had leased Lamy’s gardens and then developed a supplemental nursery on the Tesuque River, was calling his nursery the Santa Fe Nursery, and he advertised that the stock was acclimated.101 By 1895, whether for urban planting or farming, the difference between locally grown stock, honest agents with stock from back east, and agents trying to make a fast dollar became clear. That year, J.R. Johnson of the Southern Gem Nurseries in Dallas, Texas apparently sold inferior fruit trees to 30 of Farmington’s ‘leading citizens.’ At the state fair, the citizens had spent thousands of dollars to order trees and grapes that were supposed to be of exceptional quality that would bear large fruit. However, it was felt that Johnson was a fraud and that the trees were ‘wretched’ with an ‘inferior class of fruit.’ The purchases were based on the sample fruit that Johnson had shown them, and the locals felt that if they planted the trees, their orchards would regress resulting in market loss and ruined reputation.102 A number of agents selling trees in New Mexico had the same issue. By 1899, the New Mexico Agricultural College was advising orchard owners to purchase their stock at a nursery as close as possible to their orchard, even though there were only a few nurseries established within the Territory.103 Outside salesmen continued to ply their trade, but as the call for acclimated stock began to be heeded, more nurseries began to appear in New Mexico, and eventually spread to smaller towns (Figure 3). These local nurseries were emerging, as residents were beginning to look for appropriate shade trees to plant at their homes. Many were contacting nurseries back east in hopes of finding the perfect tree. In 1903, a Mr. L.M. Lasley of Albuquerque was discussing the purchase of young basswood trees for his home. The nursery he contacted was in Kentucky and it had informed him that the trees would grow rapidly, were shapely and ornamental, and that they were superior to
99 “100,000 Fruit Trees, How New Mexico Goes to the Front in Horticulture,” The Weekly New Mexican, April 15, 1886, p. 4. 100 “A Matter of Justice,” The New Mexican Review, December 15, 188, p. 3; and “Park Avenue Nursery,” The Socorro Chieftain, May 9, 1888, p. 4. 101 “Santa Fe Nursery!”, The Santa Fe New Mexican, April 29, 1890, p. 4; and “Santa Fe Nursery,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, April 17, 1894, p. 2. Rivenburg sold his nursery on the Tesuque River in 1894 and had excess stock for sale. He noted that the trees were ‘choice’ as they were acclimated, large, well-formed, and would bear fruit soon. 102 The San Juan Times, October 18, 1895, p. 4. 103 Charles A. Keffer, “Order Nursery Stock Now, New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts and Experiment Station,” October 19, 1899, reprinted in The New Mexican Review, October 26, 1899.
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the cottonwood in ‘every way.’104 It is not known whether Mr. Lasley actually purchased the basswood trees from Kentucky and planted them in Albuquerque. But, he was one of many trying to solve the problem of shade in an arid environment.
Figure 3. Fully productive Pecos Valley Orchard, 1920s Source: Adella Collier Collection, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives
During the same period, women’s clubs in Portales were working on civic projects to make their town more beautiful. They raised money to install an iron fence around the courthouse to keep livestock off the grass, they maintained the local cemetery, and they planted trees and placed sidewalks.105 They likely used native trees, but tree sellers were roaming New Mexico, even though their work became more and more contentious and generally less valued by customers. In 1904, Aztec tree-buyers were discovering that agents were selling stock for double the price that was available by purchasing direct from catalogues.106 While agents were inflicting damage on their industry with poor advice and price-gouging, locals were setting up business. The Raton Green House & Nursery Co. had been incorporated in 1903.107 A fruit tree nursery was established in Artesia, in 1905 by J.S. Highsmith, and by 1908 he could provide 200,000 apple trees throughout the Territory and in Arizona. Farmers were finding that it was indeed true that the ‘home grown’ [acclimated] trees were more adaptable to the country in which they were being planted.108 A few years after the price gouging, a nursery had been developed in Aztec, and in 1906, the J.D. Thomas of Aztec Nursery advertised that there was a full stock of fruit trees and other plantings for the spring.109 That same year, the Mesilla Valley Nursery Co. in Las Cruces had grown a supply of ‘homegrown’ apple, peach, pear, and plum trees, but could also sell ‘Mallberry’ trees, roses, and ornamental shrubs.110 Local trees were also being sold in the
104 “Typhoid Fever––Basswood Trees––A Dyke Greatly Needed,” Albuquerque Weekly Citizen, November 14, 1903, p. 7. 105 Roosevelt County, pp. 203-205. 106 San Juan County Index, July 8, 1904, p. 3. 107 “Incorporations,” Albuquerque Citizen, April 22, 1903, p. 7. 108 Albuquerque Journal, February 20, 1908, p. 7. 109 “Aztec Nursery,” San Juan County Index, March 9, 1906, p. 4. 110 Las Cruces Sun-News, December 28, 1906, p. 2.
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Huning Highland area of Albuquerque, including fruit and shade trees and the owner encourage locals to, “buy of some one [sic] you know.”111 E.F. Cadwallader and Son of Mountain Park, New Mexico, near Alamogordo, advertised that they had 35 years of experience with nurseries and that they had apple and flowering cherry trees for sale. They had 5,000 three-year-old trees and 5,000 two-year-old trees of many standard varieties.112 For Arbor Day in 1906, the Agricultural Experiment Station at the College of Agriculture near Las Cruces, put forth Bulletin No. 112 regarding planting trees (Figure 4). The bulletin was written by Fabian Garcia and he warned against planting ash, catalpa, California pepper tree, eucalyptus, maples, sycamore, and the cottonwood. He did recommend the Texas umbrella, box elder, elm, Osage orange, China berry, honey locust, black locust, and Russian mulberry, with a preference for the black locust and mulberry because they grow rapidly. Garcia also provided advice on evergreens and recommended the Himalaya cedar, red cedar, Monterey cypress, arborvitae (pyramidal and golden), euonymus, and the Japonicum.113 That year Tucumcari heeded only half of Fabian’s advice, and planted 30 cottonwood and black locust trees.114
Figure 4. College of Agriculture, road from depot to college, 1906. Source: The Land of Sunshine: A Handbook of the Resources, Products, Industries and Climate of New Mexico.
While larger or more established towns and cities were seeing nurseries established, in newer or smaller towns, trees were being shipped in by the trainload on speculation that they would sell. In the earlier years, agents would take orders and then deliver, but by the early 1900s full train cars would pull into town as a kind of mobile nursery. In Alamogordo, a large rail car arrived in early April 1906 that was filled with tree stock for residents. The trees were from Star Nursery in Ottawa, Kansas, and the delivery was a small portion of the trees that were to be planted in the
111 “Nursery Products,” Albuquerque Citizen, December 11, 1906, p. 7. 112 “Mountain Park Nurseries,” Alamogordo News, February 3, 1906, p. 4. 113 Fabian Garcia, “Tells What Trees should be Planted on Arbor Day,” Albuquerque Journal, March 26, 1906, p. 7. 114 “Arbor Day,” The Tucumcari News, March 31, 1906, p. 6.
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Alamogordo area: it was estimated that over 40,000 trees would be planted that year and that they would primarily be plum, peach, apple, and pear.115 A year later, northeastern New Mexico saw a carload of trees pull into the area carrying Haney Summers Nursery Company of Benton County, Arkansas stock. They were hoping their trees would be used for the commercial development of fruit, and realizing the advantage of a local presence, the company planned to establish a nursery in Quay County. Even so residents and farmers, could purchase trees straight from the rail car.116
As these massive shipments of trees came into towns, newspapers were continuing discussions concerning the outside trees and sales agents. The agents had become known as the ‘tree peddler’: The biggest howl against the despised tree peddler comes from certain characters of narrow principles in that direction, and the majority of these individuals are those that pose as nurserymen and horticulturists, men that grow nursery stock by proxy and always manage to hold a good, fat position.117 The Albuquerque Journal noted that the farmers near Fort Sumner were developing an organization to aid in ensuring that poor stock did not get delivered to New Mexico. It was stated that “the eastern nurseries have for years used New Mexico as a dumping ground for poor nursery stock,” and the author went on to say that “much has been said about the commission man’s robbery of the farmer.”118 New Mexican residents and farmers were fed up with poor stock and agents, and were seeking reputable nurseries that sold acclimated stock. While communities were looking to local nurseries for new stock, in 1908, there was a movement in Albuquerque to cut down the city’s established cottonwood trees because the springtime cotton had become a pest. There were protests against the “flying, floating, drifting, snow white and clinging cotton.”119 That year, entire blocks were white with the ‘menace’ and had become a ‘nerve-straining nuisance.’ When the cotton gathered in drifts it became a highly flammable danger and sometimes adjacent buildings would burn; the newspaper noted that if there were banks of cotton they should be wetted to ensure fire would not ensue. Cottonwoods had become a hazard, when just a few years earlier, a local nurseryman, A. Bratina, had advertised that he had thousands of cottonwood trees ready for transplanting.120 The tree had been in the area before the Spanish arrived, and even though new trees were still being planted, many Albuquerque residents were calling for the replacement of them as quickly as possible with elms or other trees that were of a similar size. To solve the issue, a newspaper article suggested that a number of the cottonwoods be cut and replaced each year, in a cycle that would allow the
115 “Carload of Trees for Otero County,” Albuquerque Citizen, April 5, 1906, p. 2. 116 “Haney Summer Nursery Company,” The Tucumcari News, December 29, 1906, p. 6. 117 C.A. Bennett, “Horticulture: The Tree Peddler,” The Tucumcari News reprinted from Farmer’s Review, March 31, 1906, p. 6. 118 Albuquerque Journal, reprinted from the Fort Sumner Review, October 11, 1909, p. 4. 119 “Would Cut Down Cotton Bearing Trees,” Albuquerque Journal, June 29, 1908, p. 8. 120 “A. Bratina: General Merchandise and Real Estate for Sale,” Albuquerque Citizen, May 16, 1906, p. 6.
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city to maintain shade. Another suggestion was to inoculate the cotton-bearing trees (females) with a Sulphur solution put into a large hole bored into the heart of the tree.121 Albuquerque residents were drowning in cotton and tree peddlers continued to traverse New Mexico. To distinguish the company from the peddlers, in 1909, the Stark Brothers–– which had been in New Mexico since the Victorian era and understood the market and how to protect their good name––advertised, “Which will you plant? Cheap trees, grown by unskilled nurserymen, or will you plant Stark Trees, the best trees that modern nursery science can produce and insure yourself a highly productive and profitable orchard.”122 The company had a good reputation and wasn’t worried about the new, local competition, and it would pay the cost of shipping and guarantee a safe delivery.123 In 1909, a local developer, M.P. Stamm, advertised in the Albuquerque Citizen that he had a rail car of “fine street and lawn trees” coming to the city from the Phoenix Nursery in Illinois and that the quantity was much more than he needed, so he would be selling trees at cost and he felt that a large percent of the trees would “survive and grow.”124 As the Pecos Valley orchards were being supplied by local nurseries and trees were coming into New Mexico by rail car, Carlsbad was about to begin a large tree planting venture. H.L. Rogers of the U.S. Forest Service had inspected the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) canals with members of BOR, because there were issues due to the lack of trees in the area. The original settlers had planted cottonwood as wind breaks and by the early 1900s the wind break trees were dying. As a result, the agencies were developing an experimental station near Carlsbad to determine the best methods of planting wind breaks and shade trees, and the varieties that were best adapted to this purpose. The trees that they were planning on planting included the black locust, Russian mulberry, Osage orange, honey locust, green ash, and hackberry. Willow and cottonwood trees were planned to be used as shade trees.125 As the BOR was working on wind breaks, other experimental stations and nurseries were developing in New Mexico. Former rancher C.L. Baker, in Deming was beginning a farm with experimental projects in 1911. At the new farm, he planted 300 box elder and 400 black locust trees.126 Las Cruces Nursery advertised the sale of ‘home grown trees’ from the Santo Tomas Nurseries.127 A Mr. Oscar Taylor, with 25 years of nursery experience, was planning to begin a nursery in Deming, New Mexico. The Artesia Nursery Co. provided trees for planting in a park in Carlsbad.128 As local growers and nurseries were coming to the forefront of development in New Mexico, cities were beginning to invest in parks in residential neighborhoods, sometimes with local stock and sometimes with saplings purchased from eastern nurseries. In Albuquerque, over $3,000 of
121 “Would Cut Down Cotton Bearing Trees.” 122 The Tucumcari News and Tucumcari Times, January 30. 1909, p. 2. 123 Ibid. 124 “A Carload of Trees,” Albuquerque Citizen, February 18, 1909, p. 5. 125 “Tree Planting on Extensive Scale at Carlsbad,” Albuquerque Journal, December 19, 1909, p. 4. 126 “Baker’s New Well is a Peach,” The Deming Headlight, April 28, 1911, p. 1. 127 Las Cruces Sun-News, March 11, 1910, p. 5. 128 The Carlsbad Current, March 3, 1911, p. 3.
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park improvements were made to Robinson and Highland parks during 1911; $2,500 of the funds were spent on Highland Park, which encompassed two full city blocks. The work included levelling, planting trees, and adding a driveway with cobblestone wall. Most of the trees were honey locust that were transplanted from a site at the rear of the city library. The site had been planted when the city’s attorney, M.E. Hickey, who was head of the park board at that time, wrote to a nursery company asking for the largest honey locusts he could obtain for $10. He was shocked when over 1,000 ‘tiny plants’ arrived in Albuquerque. They were planted behind the library and three years later had grown to 25-feet-tall with four-inch trunks.129 New Mexico had been receiving railroad-imported trees since 1880, with a focus on fruit trees until the turn of the century when towns, cities, and residents began to desire shade trees. By the time New Mexico became a state, it had been inundated with non-native tree species.
129 “Park Commission Makes Permanent Improvements,” Albuquerque Journal, May 19, 1911, p. 6.
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6.0 STATEHOOD AND SHADE TREES (1912-1930)
On January 6, 1912, New Mexico was admitted to the U.S. as a state. Although foreign and regional non-native trees were being planted throughout the country, at that time, there were two iconic shade trees that were being planted throughout the U.S.: the American chestnut and the American elm. The American elm became the most popular shade tree in cities and hundreds of thousands of trees were planted in burgeoning across the country in urban areas: 600,000 in Minneapolis, 400,000 in Detroit and Cincinnati, and 150,000 in Dallas. By the 1930s, there were 25 million urban American elm trees.130 As the elm was taking over the urban landscape and becoming an American icon, the American chestnut was being obliterated by a fungus that had been identified in 1904. The fungus would encircle the inner bark of a tree, constrict the flow of water and nutrients, and as it killed the tree it would develop a massive quantity of spores that would easily germinate and affect other trees. By 1907, the fungus had spread to thousands of trees and the USDA became involved in trying to stop the spread of the disease. Many believed that the disease had arrived with the Chinese or Japanese chestnut, because they were resistant to the fungus that was attacking the American trees. In 1913, the Bureau of Plant Industry requested that David Fairchild, a pre-eminent plant explorer help them determine where the fungus came from, and how it could be stopped. Fairchild assigned the task to Frank Meyer, who was already working in China––he had been sent to China in 1905 to discover and bring back plants that would be of economic value to the U.S. and he remained there to explore for 13 years.131 A month after receiving the piece of infected bark from Fairchild, Meyer said he had found a Chinese chestnut with the same fungus growing on its bark. Back in the U.S., the disease was traced by government staff to Asian nursery stock that had been imported in the late 1800s. The discovery was exciting; however, it ultimately did not lead to a solution for the American chestnut. Quarantine did not work and each year the disease would jump to another 30-mile radius from each infected area. Americans were slow to believe that the tree was being wiped out, “It simply seemed impossible that a tree so central to American ecology and culture could actually disappear.”132 Yet, by mid-century, the American chestnut had vanished “from the life of a nation.”133 The American chestnut is not directly a big player in the story of trees in New Mexico; however, the fact that such an important American tree was entirely lost had a large effect on the American psyche, on later choices of trees for urban environments, and the abandonment of tree varieties that became infested with pests. 6.1 Changes in Cities & Commerce Prior to New Mexico achieving statehood, the primary means of transportation of people and goods had been the railroad, horses, and wagons, although some automobiles had arrived. The development of roads and the ability to provide services, led to suburban development and an increase in agricultural developments. “Of plainly equal importance are the speed and efficiency
130 American Canopy, pp. 221. 131 Urban Forests, pp. 80-84. 132 American Canopy, pp. 216-217. 133 American Canopy, p. 217.
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with which commerce may be conducted with [roads].”134 While the railroad had a huge impact on speeding up the delivery of new products and bringing in outside cultural influences to New Mexico, the goods still had to travel from the rail head along unpaved wagon roads to smaller towns and ranches. After New Mexico became the 47th state, the Legislature passed the New Mexico Highway Act of 1912.135 By the end of 1912, all 26 county highway boards had been organized, and the State Highway Commission assumed its advisory role.136 New Mexico now had a formal highway department building engineered roads, so cars and trucks would be able to move products throughout the state with much greater ease. At the same time, the transition of tree sales from agent to catalogue was virtually complete in the older towns of New Mexico. In 1912, M.J. Cullen International Nurseries in Denver, Colorado, a 26- year-old business, advertised Colorado-grown trees in Albuquerque.137 The Wichita Nursery in Wichita, Kansas also advertised in the Albuquerque Journal that they were selling ‘guaranteed trees’ that could be ordered without the representative’s commission direct from the nursery–– each tree came with a Certificate of Inspection.138 Texas Nursery Company in Sherman Texas was advertising in the Las Cruces area that they had ½ million apple and pear trees and that they “Know and Grow the Best of Everything.”139 The outside companies were citing their experience, removal of agent fees, depth of knowledge, and superior products in an effort to win over the locals. By 1908, a local developed a nursery just a mile from Old Town. The Nurseries Old Albuquerque were run by John Woodward who advertised that residents should ‘encourage home industry’ and that he had many types of house plants and nursery stock for sale.140 By 1912, Woodward’s nursery consisted of 13.5 acres with a house, two greenhouses, pumps, tanks, and a barn, as well as 900 fruit trees in an orchard and 3,000 shade trees that were five-years-old in the nursery. There were also 10 acres of garden. It was the first farm on the ‘New Boulevard’ one mile from the city (presumably on what is now called Rio Grande Boulevard); a cottonwood nursery still exists in this area.141 Realizing that there was a market, the Albuquerque Floral Company incorporated in February to provide cut flowers to residents of the city, as well as nursery products including decorative trees and shrubs.142 As nurseries with new types of trees for sale appeared in New Mexico, the springtime issues associated with cottonwood––floating and drifts of cotton, as well as allergies and other
134 Kenneth B. Platt, “The Taylor Grazing Act in Operation, Article 5” Squaw Butte Regional Range Experiment Station, Burns, Oregon, circular, February 28, 1940, p. 2, located in Works Projects Administration Collection, 03- administration, topography-1936, Serial Number 5609, Folder holl vert, New Mexico State Records & Archives Center. 135 New Mexico State Highway Department, “State of New Mexico Report on Fiscal Survey 1935-1936,” on file at New Mexico State Highway and Transportation Department Library, p. 64. 136 “First Report of the State Engineer of New Mexico,” pp. 8–9. 137 Albuquerque Journal, March 17, 1912, p. 6. 138 Albuquerque Journal, September 29, 1912, p. 8. 139 Las Cruces Sun-News, November 15, 1912, p. 2. 140 Albuquerque Journal, April 4, 1908, p. 8. 141 “For Sale!,” Albuquerque Journal, October 21, 1912, p. 5; and information from New Mexico State Forestry Division noted during draft document review. 142 Albuquerque Citizen, February 27, 1909, p. 7.
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problems that affected tuberculosis patients who had come to the city for treatment––had made the tree an enemy to many in Albuquerque. In 1913, the Albuquerque Journal recommended that the city mark cottonwood trees for destruction and that they be replaced with the black locust, which the author of the article felt would grow as fast as a cottonwood and that it was a more beautiful tree.143 The black locust was rapidly becoming a favorite tree in New Mexico and in 1914, the agricultural school’s experimental station recommended 10 trees for planting in Tucumcari, with the black locust at the top of the list. Other trees that were recommended included the Russian mulberry, American elm, Osage orange, Russian olive, Ponderosa pine, black walnut, native mountain live oak, red cedar, and the male cottonwood.144 In the southern part of the state other tree types were being sold; in 1914, a Carlsbad resident, W.M. Walterscheid, advertised China umbrella, box elder, white elm, sycamore, catalpa, mulberry, mountain cottonwood, and weeping willow (Figure 5).145
Figure 5. Carlsbad c. 1920s Source: Source: Adella Collier Collection, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives
An experimental station in Dalhart, Texas tested trees that were coming into New Mexico and planted shade trees in 1913 to determine which would thrive in arid climates. Trees that were tested there: the black locust showed phenomenal growth in a four-year period, and other trees that did well were the white elm, green ash, Osage orange, and the Russian mulberry.146 Other new nurseries and experimental stations were also rising on the landscape. K. Saibara, who was a nurseryman from Webster, Texas, purchased 120 acres four miles east of Deming to establish a nursery and experimental station.147 As these changes were taking place, in eastern New Mexico, where newer towns were developing because of railroads, agents and Texas nurseries were still able to make sales. In 1915, a W.F. Bayless took orders for nursery stock in Clovis, New
143 “The Cotton Nuisance,” Albuquerque Journal, June 25, 1913, p. 6; and “Abate the Nuisance,” Albuquerque Journal, June 28, 1913, p. 6. 144 J.E. Mundell, “The Tree Varieties for Tucumcari,” The Tucumcari News and Tucumcari Times,” January 28, 1914, p. 1. 145 “Plant More Shade Trees,” The Carlsbad Current, January 22, 1915, p. 4. There were other trees for sale that he did not list. 146 “Fifty Years Ago,” Albuquerque Journal, January 16, 1963, p. 4. 147 “Experimental Farm and Nursery,” The Deming Headlight, September 27, 1912, p. 6.
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Mexico.148 The Ottawa Star Nurseries of Kansas also took orders for trees, shrubs, and flowers.149 That year, The Clovis News was promoting planting the black locust as it was drought and worm resistant and had become quite popular as a replacement for poplars, as the during the previous year, local poplars had been stripped of foliage by worms.150 Plainview Nursery from Texas was advertising in Tucumcari that they had the largest stock of ‘homegrown trees’ of varieties that had been tested to fare the best in western climates.151 While, Hereford Nursery Company in Hereford, Texas, offering ‘thoroughbred’ trees and plants, advertised in Tucumcari and said that they had “created a demand that is surprising even to [themselves]. This year’s sales will show an increase of 300 percent over last year.”152 These nurseries were not in the state, but they were close enough to New Mexico’s eastern border for the stock to be considered acclimated, and the citizens of New Mexico were buying. During the early 1900s, the sale of trees and other plants to New Mexicans continued as a mix of outside nurseries developed a combination of local sites to acclimate trees, agents for smaller or newer towns, and mail order catalogues, as well as developing local experimental stations to provide trees and advice. Often, locals would purchase seed from a nursery and grow their own trees and become a local nursery. One individual near Fort Sumner, J.A. Northington, raised 2,000 black locust trees on 25 cents worth of seed in an area that received overflow water from a windmill; he said that his seed trees grew as tall as the nursery trees he had purchased and planted at the same time.153 Meanwhile, in Tucumcari, Dr. W. Leming tested the ailanthus, silver poplar, and black locust, and planted an orchard. The local paper was encouraging residents of Tucumcari to follow suit and plant trees to beautify their homes.154 Near Deming a farmer, T.H. Patterson, had raised four to five feet tall trees from seed in just four months, including black locust, honey locust, and box elder. He was promoting the idea of farmers raising forests of useable trees and windbreaks.155 Within a few years, he was supplying his trees to the town of Deming.156 As trees for farms and municipalities were being tested for New Mexico, a Boys’ School was being created in the area that would become known as Los Alamos. Ashley Pond established a Boys’ Ranch School on a former ranch and A.J. Connell became the head of the school. The school included 50 log structures, the buildings were designed to blend with the natural landscape. Many of the trees were the native Ponderosa pine and blue spruce, but other genera were brought to the school including poplar, crab apple, maple, and elm.157 The school also
148 “Notice,” The Clovis News, February 26, 1915, p. 4. 149 The Clovis News, June 11, 1915, p. 4. 150 The Clovis News, March 15, 1915, p. 4. 151 The Tucumcari News and Tucumcari Times, May 27, 1915, p. 8 and September 9, 1915, p. 4. 152 The Tucumcari News and Tucumcari Times, August 19, 1915, p. 8. 153 “2,000 Black Locust Trees from Quarter’s Worth of Seeds,” Albuquerque Journal, May 8, 1910, p. 3. 154 “The City Beautiful,” The Tucumcari News and Tucumcari Times, March 14, 1913, p.1. 155 “Luna County World’s Fair, Trees from Seed,” The Deming Headlight, September 30, 1910, p. 1. 156 “One Cent a Word Column,” The Deming Headlight, February 9, 1912, p. 5. 157 Trees identified from survey associated with this report and historic photographs available at the Museum of New Mexico.
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included flowering shrubs, hedges, and numerous bulbs. It was a designed landscape that flowed into the natural landscape of the mountains. Two years after Ashley Pond’s school was created in the mountains west of Santa Fe, in Clayton, 500 black locust were given away by the Otto-Johnson Mercantile Company and, perhaps somewhat related, that same year, local resident, J.W. Forbes, planted 200 black locust at his place to provide shade.158 Although the black locust was popular throughout New Mexico, in March 1916, the U.S. Forest Service was recommending planting the male cottonwood, American elm, Arizona ash, and sycamore, as well as juniper, piñon, and Arizona cypress.159 Outside nurseries marketing in New Mexico continued to be far-flung; by 1915, the Oregon Nursery Co. of Orenco, Oregon had a branch in Mesilla and was advertising that their local agency could provide fruit, shade, and ornamental trees that were one-year old, but on a three- year root stock.160 By this time, any organization that originated outside of New Mexico needed to develop a gimmick or means to place itself above the competition. The non-local nursery that seemed to fare the best was the Stark Brothers. They were savvy sales people with superior stock. In 1915, in an effort to reach out to Deming, the company gifted ornamental and fruit trees, as well as flowering shrubs to the Deming Cottage Sanatorium.161 Four years later, a large shipment of Stark Brothers trees arrived in Grant and Luna counties in a refrigerated rail car. The trees were to be delivered over ten days to Deming, Santa Rita, Central, Silver City, and Tyrone. The shipment included pre-ordered trees and additional trees for sale for those who had not yet ordered. The general Stark Brothers agent for the Deming area, H.E. Heath, also took new orders for the next spring.162 Stark Brothers appears to have been targeting the railroad division points as a way to obtain a toehold in the market. A year after bringing trees to Deming and its nearby communities, they had a local agent in Albuquerque. In 1920, J.T. Young, who was developing a nursery, was selling fruit, shade, and ornamental trees and advertised in the paper that a “home without trees is a mighty poor home.”163 The nursery industry was expanding, and it was becoming more and more important to have a special edge to make one’s company stand out. Other types of collaboration were beginning to develop to bring trees to the state. The same year that the Stark Brothers began supplying trees to J.T. Young’s nursery, the U.S. Forest Service and the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce collaborated to plant over 800 black locust and elm trees in the city. To complete the municipal project, the Forest Service provided advice and the city developed specifications on how contractors would plant the trees.164 The nursery business continued to expand into other areas of the state. Just as local nurseries were becoming the norm, the U.S. Forest Service began to promote out-of-state nurseries to residents of New Mexico. Apparently, the Forest Service felt that the nurseries were not
158 The Clayton Citizen, March 25, 1916, p. 3, and May 4, 1916, p. 5. 159 “Time to Plant Trees is Now, Say Foresters,” Albuquerque Morning Journal, March 2, 1916, p. 4. 160 Las Cruces Sun-News, January 1, 1915, p. 4. 161 “Trees and Shrubbery for Sanatorium,” The Deming Headlight, February 5, 1915, p. 3. 162 “Stark Bros. Trees Coming,” The Deming Headlight, November 25, 1919, p. 7. 163 Albuquerque Journal, March 12, 1920, p. 8. 164 “City Tree Planting Successful as a Community Stunt,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, February 12, 1920, p. 2.
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providing enough variety for the growing market. The Albuquerque Journal announced in 1921 that if residents were having difficulty finding the trees they would like to plant, they should contact the district Forest Service office which had received a bulletin that listed “every type of forest tree carried in all of the leading nurseries of the country.”165 The catalog included descriptions of trees and the approximate price of seeds or saplings. That same year, providing even more competition for the local nurseries, and introduce a new type of tree to the urban landscape, the Forest Service provided over 5,000 evergreen trees to residents of Albuquerque to plant as ornamental trees. These evergreens came from a 100,000-tree nursery, called Gallinas, that had been established in 1914 near Las Vegas. It had been planted as an experimental station focused on reforestation with the yellow pine and Englemann spruce.166 By 1921, it had been abandoned and the Forest Service was working to divest itself of the remaining 25,000 trees from the nursery by sending the trees throughout New Mexico and Arizona. The saplings were from 12 to 18 inches tall and were accompanied by instructions for planting.167 6.2 Suburban Development The construction of railroads had resulted in the development of small towns adjacent to the tracks to support the railroad maintenance. Once engineered roads began to be constructed, speculators moved from the core of the railroad towns to the outskirts, developing new neighborhoods. There were many such developments in Albuquerque as it began to extend to the east, including the University of New Mexico (UNM), a residential area that was developed for the affluent, and other east mesa subdivisions that began to affect the landscape. Almost immediately upon the creation of UNMs one-building campus in the fall of 1892, administrators and the Board of Regents made plans to expand and beautify the campus. In 1905, UNM President William G. Tight, faculty, and students began transplanting young pine trees around the Administration Building (Hodgin Hall) and cottonwoods at an ‘arbotheater’ on the northwest corner of the campus. The resulting grove of trees near Administration was eventually called Tight Grove and it is at what is now the southwest corner of the campus at Central Avenue and University Boulevard. Tight believed that a beautiful campus would foster a better academic environment, and he formed the Campus Improvement League as a means by which to accomplish his vision. His landscape idea was based on the naturalistic picturesque movement: it called for a planned landscape that appeared to be natural and informal like the English countryside. The Campus Improvement League planted the trees on a rolling ground surface with an informal placement. On Arbor Day each year, Tight, faculty, and male students would bring additional saplings and cuttings from the Sandia Mountains and plant them on campus. The trees that were available in the mountains were Western yellow pine, Douglas fir, white fir, quaking aspen, and Engelmann spruce.168 While the male faculty and students worked, the female students prepared food for an afternoon picnic. By the end of the first decade of the
165 “Data on Nurseries at Forest Service,” Albuquerque Journal, April 12, 1921, p. 4. 166 “Over 100,000 Trees Planted at Big Nursery near Las Vegas; Many and Valuable are Results of Work,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, September 12, 1914, p. 4; and “Grauch [sic] to Take Charge of Gallinas Nursery,” Albuquerque, Journal, March 19, 1914, p. 4. 167 “Forest Service Trees Growing Well in City,” Albuquerque Journal, April 20, 1921, p. 3; and “Citizens Have Chance to Get Fir Trees Free,” Albuquerque Journal, April 5, 1921, p. 7. 168 James I. Culbert, “Cattle Industry of New Mexico,” Economic Geography, Vol. 17, No. 2 (April 1941), p.159.
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twentieth century, the Campus Improvement League had planted more than 5,000 trees and plants around the university campus.169 Clyde Tingley entered into politics in 1916 as an alderman for the City Commission for the Second Ward; he had moved to Albuquerque in 1911. One of his first acts was to purchase the local water works from Angus Grant, who owned them and had refused to extend water lines outside the existing city limits. It took months, but the city did purchase the system and began to expand almost immediately with new subdivisions. Tingley was brash, he made things happen, and many thought he lacked social refinement, but it has been said that “Tingley’s devotion to the welfare of his adopted city was genuine.”170 He was not yet affecting trees in town, but he had leveraged a tool that allowed the town to grow. In 1918, in an effort to advise citizens about planting shade trees, the U.S. Forest Service put out farmer’s bulletin 888, “Advice to Forest Planters in the Plains Region.” J.F. Mullen, supervisor of the Forest Service, provided the bulletin to the Albuquerque city manager (Tingley was still an alderman) to provide information about the best trees to plant in the city and neighboring areas. The list in the bulletin included: hackberry, honey locust, white elm, cottonwood, narrow leaf cottonwood, white poplar, white and diamond willows, Russian olive, Buffalo berry, and Siberian pea tree. The bulletin recommended the cottonwood as a native tree that could do well on sites that had only small amounts of water, but warned against using them for street or yard trees, because branches would fail as the tree aged. The forester recommended planting only male cottonwood to avoid the floating cotton in the spring. He noted that it was easy to take saplings from riverbanks or make cuttings from the male trees and plant them. Although the forester was encouraging residents to plant cottonwood, he felt that the honey locust or hackberry were more desirable trees.171 While there were many types of trees available, the locust continued to be a favorite. A year later, in Clovis, the commissioners were planting black locust at the county courthouse and in the newspaper chastised the citizens that the sooner that Clovis adopted the tree––city leaders felt was the only tree that would survive in the county––the sooner the town would have shade.172 Most towns in New Mexico were striving to add trees and shade while the full extent of the loss of the American chestnut was beginning to enter the American psyche; and then, another iconic tree was endangered. After World War I, the American elms in Rotterdam, Netherlands began to have brown leaves and dying bark. The disease spread at an alarming rate and was soon reported in France, then in Germany in 1921, and by 1926 it had moved to England. The disease was moving more quickly than the blight on the chestnut had; this new, fast-moving fungus was generally referred to as Dutch elm disease. U.S. arborists were shaken, as they were in the middle of a battle for the American chestnut and losing; contemplating taking on another battle was overwhelming.
169 Van Dorn Hooker, Only in New Mexico, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), 17. Except for the now-towering pines in Tight Grove, none of these plants survived the construction of new buildings at that part of the campus. 170 Albuquerque, p. 364. 171 “Tells the Kind of Trees to Plant in this Region: Bulletin Issued by Department of Agriculture Contains Valuable Advice for Shade Tree Planters,” Albuquerque Journal, January 28, 1918, p. 8. 172 The Clovis News, April 17, 1919, p. 6.
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Although arborists were concerned for the American elm, the disease had not yet reached the U.S., and New Mexicans were focused on importing fruit trees, transplanting native shade trees, and beginning to plant exotic shade and ornamental trees. By the teens, UNM must have looked quite pleasant and green with groves of trees, tree-lined streets, and lawns. It must have seemed an ideal location to develop an adjacent, exclusive neighborhood that could take advantage of the city’s newly extended water service and could include trees and plantings. One such new neighborhood was developed by the Southwestern Construction Company, which had been incorporated in 1919 by James Gladding, Louis Bennett, Columbus Mauldin, and William Springer. Gladding’s group purchased the development and platted the land as the Country Club Addition.173 The Country Club Addition was the only development in town that included water, sewers, paving, electric lights, and telephones.174 As part of the development, the Southwestern Construction Company included a park, which was originally called ‘Country Club Park’, however, the name was changed to Spruce Park in 1928 when the Country Club moved west. In addition to the park, the company planted street trees and the residents cultivated gardens and well-landscaped yards at their homes (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Spruce Park in the 1980s Source: Spruce Park nomination form The Country Club landscape was like that which developed in Aztec, New Mexico with the use of acequias, but in Albuquerque, the city-purchased water works provided water through pipes into homes and for the landscaping. The addition was connected to town via a tree-lined street that led west and south to Central Avenue and another tree-lined street that connected to the university. Among the trees that were planted in the area was the elm, as “newcomers set out elms in preference to the native cottonwood because they reminded them of the eastern homes that [tuberculosis] had forced them to abandon.”175 Between the university and this new development, Albuquerque’s east mesa was beginning to develop, and its new suburban forest rivaled the trees that had been planted in the railroad area of Victorian period Huning Highland. Spruce Park became known as one of Albuquerque’s most beautiful and popular residential districts.176
173 Mary Davis, Kathleen Brooker, and Susan Dewitt, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Spruce Park Historic District,” January 1981, Section 8, Page 1. The original Albuquerque Country Club was just east of the addition, but moved near the Rio Grande in 1928 174 Ibid. 175 Albuquerque, p. 346. Although this sentence doesn’t include “Chinese” in the text, Chinese elm prefaces the sentence and the meaning is clear. 176 Ibid. 176 Karen Van Citters, Edith Cherry, and William A. Dodge, “University of New Mexico Preservation Plan,” Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2006, pp. 9, 10, and 47. In the 1980s, it was noted that the trees in the area had not been topped and because they had been “pruned carefully and intelligently” so that the “tall beautiful trees [had] become more beautiful.”
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A few years after the Southwestern Construction Company began the exclusive east mesa subdivision, many residents in Albuquerque were razing female cottonwood trees to eliminate the nuisance of the floating cotton. It had become a large problem for the city as residents felt that the “…city has been cursed with the evil of the female cottonwoods” to the extent that prospective tree purchasers would not buy either the male or female cottonwood. 177 Even so, it was noted that “…there is no tree that will stand more neglect and make the growth that the cottonwood will.”178 In response to the negative perception of the cottonwood, J.T. Young provided his expertise on alternative replacement trees for shade and noted that the selection in New Mexico was limited. Having said that, he endorsed planting the American elm or the black locust, especially as street trees, with a preference for the black locust because it would grow quickly.179 He noted that many sycamores had been planted in Albuquerque 10-15 years earlier, but that they were quickly dying with no discernable reason. As such, he recommended that residents no longer plant sycamore. He noted that the willow could do very well and that, in fact, a Mr. Stueckel, who lived north of Old Albuquerque had 8-year-old willows adjacent to the road that had grown to the same height as the cottonwoods of the same age.180 All the talk about removing the female cottonwoods led to a panic by the residents who wanted to keep their trees and thought that the city would cut down their shade trees to rid the municipality of the cotton. So, residents began cutting the trees back in a harsh way to reduce the amount of cotton. In response the city warned citizens to not prune their male cottonwoods. At that point, W.H. Long entered the discussion and wrote an article for the Albuquerque Journal explaining how to properly prune a shade tree and noted that the new telephone lines were resulting in the mutilation of the trees through poor pruning to make room for the wires. In addition to proper pruning, he recommended cutting back the female trees so that the male trees would eventually overshadow them and become the dominant tree, thereby reducing the cotton issue.181 As citizens endured the cottonwood dialogue, the black locust continued to take over the landscape. By 1921, it was the primary tree being planted in the University Heights subdivision on the east mesa of Albuquerque.182 While it was the primary tree, other genera were being planted, as in 1922, a resident of University Heights was accepting orders for not only the black locust, but also the white ash, elm, catalpa, and Russian olive for $1 each to be used during the Arbor Day plantings.183 Subdivisions continued to move onto the Mesa and in 1926, Parkland Hills was incorporated. The land was platted by Saco Reink DeBoer, who was a landscape architect and planner for the city of Denver. DeBoer’s Albuquerque subdivision design connected UNM and the veteran’s hospital (both were green and parklike) with a diagonal parkway drive that would allow for a centrally-located residential park and small green areas at intersections. The idea of calling the
177 “Eliminate all Female Species of Cottonwoods: J.T. Young, Expert Tree Grower, Recommends American Elm and Black Locust as Best Shade Trees,” Albuquerque Journal, March 23, 1920, p. 2. 178 Ibid. 179 At that time the American elm had not yet been affected by Dutch elm disease, and it was an iconic shade tree that would have made for a beautiful street tree, although it would have required more water than the black locust. 180 “Eliminate all Female Species of Cottonwoods.” 181 “Preserve Shade Trees of City Says Tree Man,” Albuquerque Journal, February 26, 1921, p. 3. 182 “University Heights Doings,” Albuquerque Journal, July 13, 1921, p. 10. 183 “University Heights Doings,” Albuquerque Journal, March 21, 1922, p. 8.
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subdivision “Parkland” was to sculpt a green domain from the arid desert mesa. Unlike the earlier Country Club Addition, this area did not include paved streets, water, electricity, or sewers; and during bad weather, teams of horses were used to pull cars up the hill at Carlisle.184 As Albuquerque was developing on the east mesa and razing cottonwood trees, Roswell was in a fight to save its cottonwoods. By the 1920s, the cottonwood, a prevalent source of shade, was beginning to fail. They had dead branches at the top, unhealthy color, and leaves that would fall shortly after they came out in the spring. The trees were dying slowly because the water table had been drawn down and the streets were being paved, which caused runoff to be directly away from the roots of trees. After the streets were paved, the infiltration to the roots was greatly impeded and the trees couldn’t get enough water to thrive. When trees had first been planted in Roswell and the roads were unpaved, all residents had to do was to “…stab right down a straight stick and in a few years have a glorious tree.”185 By 1928, trees had to be carefully planted and watered until the roots were deep enough for them to survive. To save the trees, residents were pruning the tops to reduce the amount of water required to keep them alive. As the pruning was taking place to save trees, the town was planting elms so that when the cottonwood gave out, Roswell would remain a city of shade (Figure 7).186
Figure 7. Lover’s Lane in Roswell, c. 1900 Source: Source: Source: Adella Collier Collection, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives Concurrent with Roswell’s struggle to save their cottonwoods, Albuquerqueans continued to complain about and remove theirs. The argument about the annual inundation of cotton was raised again in 1928, but by then, most residents felt that they preferred to keep the ‘old majestic
184 No author. “A Brief History of the Ridgecrest Area,” typed pages in TACA, MSS 774 BC, Box 1, Folder “Neighborhood Tours 1983-89,” on file at University of New Mexico, Center for Southwest Research. 185 “Saving the Cottonwoods,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, reprinted from the Roswell Southwestern Dispatch, July 2, 1928, p. 4. 186 Ibid.
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presence,’ rather than cut them down just to provide relief during the spring. Dr. W.H. Long had come up with a variation on the Sulphur treatment that had been recommended earlier, and proposed spraying female cottonwoods with a 2 percent solution of sulphuric acid to stop the cotton from occurring. The newspaper proposed that the city provide the treatment, so all trees would be treated, rather than leave it up to individual residents.187 As the cottonwood discussion continued, subdivisions continued to rise on the east mesa, and the university carried on the development of the campus and planted more trees. But, given the argument against the cottonwood and the location of the campus on the mesa, a different type of shade tree was necessary. In 1928, Parsons Grove, on Central Avenue to the east of the original Tight Grove, was constructed. The original planting plan was designed by the firm of Gaastra, Gladding, and Johnson, the developers of the Country Club Addition. They designed the new grove using 250 “Chinese elm” trees that had been purchased from the state’s College of Agriculture at Las Cruces, New Mexico. Although it is possible the tree was used in the original Country Club Addition plantings, this is the first documented use of the Chinese elm in Albuquerque that was found during this study. Over the years, as the elms died, other tree species have been planted at the grove including a variety of evergreens, one of which is now one of the largest cedars on the campus.188 From the 1920s until the 1950s, the Chinese elm and Siberian elm were confused in New Mexico, and more often than not, the Siberian elm was called the Chinese elm. In any case, it appears that typically Siberian elm were planted, but called ‘Chinese.’ The Siberian elm had been first introduced to the U.S. in 1905, when Professor J.G. Jack of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum sent species from China to Boston. In 1914, Frank Meyer, the explorer who had identified the same fungus affecting the American chestnut in Chinese trees, brought home a large quantity of Siberian elm seeds from Peking, Chili in China. They were planted and raised to saplings that were sent in 1917 to the forest nursery at the University of California, Berkeley. From there, trees were sent to local experimental stations throughout the U.S., likely including the College of Agriculture. In New Mexico, the Siberian elm has a fast growth and is tolerant of almost any site, can reach 60’, and is resistant to drought; because of this, nurseries promoted the tree and it quickly became popular. The drawbacks to the Siberian elm that were not discussed when the tree was advertised are that the seeds are profuse in the spring, the tree grows so fast that it is not strong, and its lifespan is only 25-50 years. Because of this, they are now not seen as a good urban tree and have been classified as a noxious weed; however, they are one of the most planted of any tree that has been introduced to the U.S. and this holds true for the trees planted in New Mexico.189 The U.S. Forest Service, Southwestern District produced a document in 1927 that provided advice for shade and ornamental trees in New Mexico and Arizona. In the document the foresters espoused the importance of trees for aesthetic and civilized communities and noted that residents should obtain trees from local reputable nurseries with hardy acclimated stock or use “wildlings” from the local forests.190 The foresters recommended that the homeowner determine whether to
187 “Cottonwood Nuisance,” Albuquerque Journal, June 22, 1925, p. 6. 188 “UNM Preservation Plan,” pp. 9, 10, and 47. 189 Donald J. Leopold, “Chinese and Siberian Elms,” Journal of Arboriculture 6(7), July 1980: 175-179. 190 Wildlings are saplings that are taken from the forest and transplanted elsewhere.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico plant shade, fruit, or a combination prior to selecting the actual trees and that no more than two trees be planted along the street front for a 50’ wide lot (the standard width that developers were using for subdivisions at the time). They went on to say that city trees ‘have a continual battle for existence’ and that everything in a municipality could adversely affect a tree, including sidewalks and paved streets that reduced air and water from roots; raking leaves so that soil is not replenished; cats reducing the bird population so that insects and pests were more abundant; and telephone lines that resulted in trees being topped. Still, although there are challenges for trees in urban environments, the Forest Service noted that “…the city or town without trees is backward rather than progressive.”191 The 1927 Forest Service document listed trees that should be planted in New Mexico and Arizona municipalities and their characteristics. They noted that trees with low branches and evergreens should not be used as street trees. Generally, they felt that evergreens would be best used to add color to a winter landscape and that they should be grouped in a corner or used as screens. Table 3 below shows the trees and the 1927 recommendations:
Table 2. Tree types recommended by U.S. Forest Service for New Mexico in 1927 Source: “Trees for Shade and Ornamental Planting in Arizona and New Mexico”, pp. 10-14.
Tree Attributes Uses American or Tall, graceful and symmetrical; long-lived, rapid growing Yard and park planting. white elm (under ideal conditions) Chinese elm “Best tree for general planting in the Southwest.” A Street, yard, and park. beautiful tree that grows rapidly. Black locust Beautiful blooming tree, rapid growing, drought resistant, “Fair” tree for street, yard and but susceptible to borers192 park. Green ash Rapid growing and long-lived193 Street, yard, and park.
Silver maple Beautiful, but short-lived, should be planted over 2,500’ in Street, park, or spacious yards. elevation,
Box elder Tendency to be infested with red bug, ‘branchiness’ low on Yard or park. the trunk, not recommended as a street tree. Ailanthus Rapid grower and drought resistant. Not recommended as a street, yard or park tree.194 Weeping willow Beautiful tree, not recommended as a street tree. Yard or park, but not the street Cottonwood Most prolific tree in the Southwest. Rapid grower that can take a “lot of abuse”, could be obtained at nurseries or could easily be propagated from cuttings. Sycamore A beautiful tree, adapted to rich soils in valleys without alkalinity.
191 U.S. Forest Service, Southwestern District, “Trees for Shade and Ornamental Planting in Arizona and New Mexico,” United States Department of Agricultural, Forest Service, Southwestern District, 1927, pp. 2-9, on file in Work Projects Administration Collection, 03-administration, topography-1936, Serial Number 5609, Folder holl vert, New Mexico State Records & Archive Center. 192 Foresters noted that none had been seen in New Mexico or Arizona at the time. 193 Foresters went on to say that it would not be a good tree for general planting Albuquerque, although they did not say why. 194 Suitable for areas where there was a shortage of water.
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Tree Attributes Uses Lombardy poplar Hardy, short-lived, that “lends a dignity” to the landscape. Street intersections, boundaries, and landscapes. Honey locust Grows more slowly than black locust, beautiful. Street or yard.
Mulberry Good tree, but with fruit. The foresters noted that the male Back yard, so fruit wouldn’t trees do not have fruit, but at the time it was difficult to tell drop of sidewalk. the difference between the types. Russian olive Low branching, so not useful for street. Yard or park. Tamarisk Could be used as a tree, shrub, or hedge. The foresters noted Yard or park. that it was especially adapted to the alkali soils and wet places, but could probably be used for mesa areas. Nut trees the trees had not yet been tried enough to know whether they Open, irrigated areas. would work well, but the black walnut, butternut, almond, chestnut, pecan, and hickory were in experiments. They were not recommended as street trees because they would cause issues with the sidewalks.
The evergreen trees that the U.S. Forest Service recommended were: Colorado blue spruce, Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, white fir, red cedar, Alligator juniper, arbor vitae, Arizona cypress, Austrian pine, Scotch pine, and Deodar cedar. Also in 1927, Mr. J.T. Young and a Mr. J.D. Jones gave a talk to the Albuquerque Women’s Club. They promoted planting in parks, boulevards, and along streets. Jones spoke of street trees and stated that landscaping in front of a 50’ lot would cost about $4 per season to maintain, which he felt could be charged to the homeowner, but that the land would be managed by the city and superintendent of parks. He felt that 20 percent of any city’s land areas should be devoted to parks, which included playground, neighborhood, athletic field, horticultural, town square [plaza], large community parks, and zoos. Jones felt that the best type of trees for a city were the deciduous because they provided shade and went on to say that the best type of tree for Albuquerque were the Chinese elm, American elm, black locust, catalpa, weeping willow, and evergreens for front lawns.195 While the New Mexico universities were sharing experimental trees, local nurseries were continuing to develop and work to beautify communities, and cities were investing in landscaped public spaces. In an ever-increasing competition, nurseries were developing from a place that only provided trees and planting advice into the professional realm of design. In 1928, Mrs. W.H. Long, who was married to a pathologist with the Bureau of Plant Industry, advertised herself as a ‘Landscape Artist’ that could provide a complete line of shade trees, evergreens, shrubs, roses, and perennials. One could do more than just order plants from Mrs. Long, she would design and plant residential gardens.196 That same year, J.T. Young enlarged his business and opened a new warehouse that included 3,700 square feet of nursery near Five Points in Barelas. He called his updated business the Albuquerque Nurseries.197 Young pointed out that just a few years prior to 1928, very few homes in Albuquerque included a shrub, rose, or green
195 “Society,” Albuquerque Journal, January 15, 1927, p. 5. 196 “New Mexico Nurseries,” Albuquerque Journal, March 15, 1928, p. 8. 197 “Nurseries to Have Opening of a New Warehouse Today,” Albuquerque Journal, February 14, 1928, p. 3.
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lawn, because residents were skeptical that anything would grow. Working to sell more plants through a newspaper article, he outlined advice that would “give the person of average intelligence an idea of what constitutes beauty and what does not.”198 He encouraged homeowners to draw plans for landscaping that included positioning of drives and walkways for their ‘ornament and utility,’ as well as the location of trees, shrubs, and plants that should be used. He especially encouraged foundation planting, an open area of lawn, flower beds at the borders, large trees near boundaries and smaller set to add ‘charm to the scene.’199 The combined efforts of Mrs. Long and J.T. Young brought landscape design to residential applications. In fact, their approach was about to explode on the Albuquerque scene when it was applied to wholesale landscaping of the Parkland Hills subdivision. Young did not design the landscape, but his new warehouse did supply the plants for S.R. DeBoer’s landscape design that included many tree types, shrubs, open areas of grass, and formal gardens. H.N. Wheeler of the U.S. Forest Service had promoted tree-planting and the developers for Parkland Hills stated that they felt it was one of the duties of sub-division developments in Albuquerque, rather than layout the streets and leaving ‘beautification’ for later. So, their design called for American elm, Chinese elm, and black locust at 30’ intervals along parking strips. They noted that the American elm and black locust were already well-used in Albuquerque, but that the Chinese elm was new to the area. Although the Chinese elm had not been much-used by 1928, they pointed to experiments that had been carried out in Texas that showed that the tree did well in similar climates, with a fast growth and minimal water, and that it also exhibited a “hardihood and longevity not usually found in fast growing trees.” 200 In the second documented planting of the trees found during research for this project, over 100 of the Chinese elm were planted in Parkland Hills.201 It seems that Young overestimated the number of trees that would be sold for the DeBoer design in the new subdivision, and the other buyers that may have been spurred on by the idea to purchase trees for their homes. In 1929, Young’s Albuquerque Nurseries had a “slaughter sale on nursery stock.”202 The company had 30,000 shade trees that were to be sold at three for the price of one. The species included American elm, Norway poplar, box elder, black locust, honey locust, silver maple, Western catalpa, and Chinese elm. The nursery was also selling apple, peach, plum, cherry, and pear trees, as well as grape vines, flowering shrubs and rose bushes.203 In the classified ad section of the paper, a month prior, there were listings for the sale of shade trees, Lombardy poplar in Los Lunas, genuine Stark Brothers 4 to 7’ trees, and fruit trees.204 Nurseries had fully arrived at the Albuquerque scene and trees were readily available for residents and developers to plant. Developers were planting trees in their subdivisions, nurseries were expanding and selling thousands of trees, and experts were stating what they felt were the best plantings for New
198 J.T. Young, “Landscape Gardening,” Albuquerque Journal, February 26, 1928, p. 17. 199 Ibid. 200 “Elaborate Plan by Expert for Parkland Hills is Carried Out,” Albuquerque Journal, March 11, 1928, p. 11. 201 Ibid. 202 Nursery advertisement, Albuquerque Journal, April 7, 1929, p. 7. 203 Ibid. 204 Classified advertisement, Albuquerque Journal, March 26, 1929, p. 7.
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Mexico. Dr. W.H. Long, the Bureau of Plant Industry pathologist married to the local landscape designer, published an article stating that the most desirable tree ‘in all respects’ for Albuquerque was the Russian non-bearing mulberry. He had prepared a list of trees in the order of suitability to aid homeowners with planting trees. In order, his list after the mulberry included, Chinese elm, American elm, Russian olive, ailanthus, black locust, valley cottonwood, Norway poplar, mountain cottonwood, box elder, and tamarisk. He also felt that the Lombardy poplar would be a good choice in places where there was enough water. He said that the best plants for University Heights, a newly established neighborhood between downtown and Parkland, would be the mulberry, Russian olive, ailanthus, and tamarisk because they are hardy and drought-resistant. He also noted that in Albuquerque there were different zones that would affect trees: lowlands, highlands, and the heights. For the lowlands, where the water table is high, he recommended cottonwoods, poplars (except Lombardy), willows, American elm, and honey locust.205 Long also wrote that there were two trees that were being planted excessively in Albuquerque: cottonwood and Chinese elm. He thought that the Chinese elm would prove to be equal to the other trees, but that the numbers that had been planted at the time didn’t provide enough information for him to judge their suitability. Even so, he believed it would do well in New Mexico climate and make a ‘fine shade tree.’ He noted that the Chinese elm was in such demand that small trees were being sold as quickly as possible and before an appropriate crown could be developed. He stated that the crown was important because it was necessary to prune the Chinese elm properly when it was planted. He warned against the ‘so-called experts in tree pruning’ that visited the city on a periodic basis. He called them tree butchers and recommended that home owners consult with experts before hiring the traveling pruners.206 It seems that New Mexico had moved from tree peddlers that sold inferior trees, to nomadic pruners that ruined trees. Albuquerque was planting Chinese elm as fast as residents could get their hands on the saplings and at the same time, Alamogordo was looking to replace their cottonwood trees with Chinese elm. In Alamogordo, just as had developed in Roswell, the water table had begun to be lowered by 1902, which caused issues with the trees. A nursery for Chinese elm was established in 1929 at the New Mexico School for the Blind. The school purchased trees directly from a seller in China. Several thousand trees were transplanted at the school and 1,300 were sold to Alamogordo to replace the cottonwood street trees. Additionally, several hundred were sold to Carrizozo and another 3,000 saplings were almost ready for sale from the school.207 While the Chinese elm was becoming a favorite in New Mexico, a previous favorite, the black locust, was suffering from pests. Long wrote another article that described the black locust and its issues in New Mexico. He noted that for years the tree had been used for general planting in the western U.S., because it grew rapidly, did well in dry climates, and had a long life. He felt it was perfect for the arid condition of the plains. But, by 1930 the trees were being infested by the black locust borer and a plant louse. The infestation began in the east and spread through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado, and by 1930 it had spread to eastern New Mexico at Clovis,
205 “Non-Bearing Mulberry Best for Albuquerque Home Owners, Says United States Forest Authority,” Albuquerque Journal, March 17, 1929, p. 19. 206 “Pruning Shade Trees Must Be Done Scientifically or it is Harmful, Expert Tells Journal,” Albuquerque Journal, February 24, 1929, p. 17. 207 “Chinese Elm Tree Nursery Successful at Blind’s School,” Albuquerque Journal, March 7, 1931, p. 3.
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Portales, Elida, Roswell, Hagerman, Artesia, Carlsbad, Alamogordo, Vaughn, Clayton, and Des Moines and up through the Rio Grande valley at Las Cruces, San Marcial, and Socorro.208 In addition to the pests, the locust trees in Albuquerque were beginning to show root rot, a disease from which the tree could not recover. A survey of the black locust trees was made in Albuquerque and it found 35 trees at McClellan Park, 25 at UNM along Central Avenue near the reservoir, 49 at Highland Park, 35 at a park near the Santa Fe Hospital, 13 at the City Library, and numerous street trees. The dying trees included those that had been recently planted to those that had been providing shade for years. At the time, representatives of the federal, state, and county recommended that the black locust no longer be planted, because even if it didn’t get root rot, it would likely succumb to one of the pests.209 As the black locusts were being surveyed, also in 1930, some of the cottonwoods in Albuquerque began to die. Dr. Long said that the continuing development which constructed additional wells had lowered the water table, even in the lower areas near the Rio Grande, so the roots could not reach water. As it had in Roswell, new paving exacerbated the problem, in that they diverted the water that had been there naturally prior to the new roads. Not all cottonwoods were affected; the cottonwood trees that were doing well, were those on lawns that were receiving attentive care.210 In Albuquerque, the black locust were infested, and the cottonwood were dying; the city was looking for a new shade tree that would grow quickly.
208 W.H. Long, “Black Locust is Undesirable as Shade Trees, Because of the Pest which will Attack it: This is Statement of Government Plant Specialist Who Says Survey Shows Many Here Diseased,” Albuquerque Journal, February 2, p. 3. 209 “Black Locust is Undesirable as Shade Trees.” 210 “City’s Water Table Lower Says Speaker: Pathologist in Address to Kiwanis Club, Asserts Trees Dying Because of Various Improvements,” Albuquerque Journal, October 9, 1930, p. 3.
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
7.0 THE ELM AND THE NEW DEAL (1930-1943)
During the early 1930s, the U.S. suffered from the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a major economic decline that had begun in 1929 with a catastrophic collapse of stock on the New York Stock Exchange and a continuing, steady decline of stock prices. As economic conditions worsened, an epidemic was about to hit an iconic American tree. During the summer of 1930, Dutch elm disease found its way from Europe to Cleveland. Eight American elm trees that had the fungus were destroyed, but within weeks, 361 diseased trees were identified in New Jersey and cases were traveling across state lines. No attempts at quarantine were successful. Eventually, a USDA plant inspector at the port in Baltimore discovered that the elm bark beetle and the Dutch elm disease fungus were traveling to the U.S. on elm burls that were being imported for furniture veneer.211 The government was determined to save the tree, but concurrently the plains states were entering the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was a phenomenon that arose through a combination of the settlement that was encouraged by the Homestead Act and climate. Under the Homestead Act, settlers were allowed to lay claim to 160 acres of land. In 1904, the Kincaid Act increased the available homestead acreage to 640. However, because it was difficult to economically farm the land, much of the additional acreage was used for grazing until World War I. When the U.S. entered the war, the need for wheat rose and Midwest farms used newly available, mechanized machinery to plant the wheat. After years of raising wheat, the soil became depleted and crops began to fail. Once the crops failed, livestock was turned out to graze in the wheat fields and their hooves further broke up the soil. Then in 1934, unusually strong winds picked up the pulverized soil from 16 million acres across the Midwest, creating dust blizzards and leaving 20-foot sand dunes in their path.212 The Dust Bowl added to unemployment, created a transient population, and worsened the already poor economy. To recover from the effects of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, the U.S. government responded with the Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) that was intended to put money back into the economy and the hands of the multitudinous poor. The Act resulted in creating the Works Project Administration (WPA) and the Public Works Administration (PWA). By 1934, when the Dust Bowl was taking hold, the government had already invested $300,000 to eradicate Dutch elm disease the problem for the American elm. That year the American Forestry Association was working to obtain a PWA grant for an additional $527,000 to address the issue. The funds were used to destroy affected trees, and during first phase 7,786 trees were removed from the landscape. President Roosevelt, who was greatly vested in trees, then added $2.5 million to the PWA initiative, because the trees were in almost every community.213 As the battle for the elm ramped up, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instructed the U.S. Forest Service to initiate a program to save the farms on the great plains. On July 21, 1934, the Forest Service began the Prairie States Forestry Project. The mission was to plant shelterbelts in six
211 American Canopy, pp. 222-223. 212 Langdon C. White, Edwin J. Foscue, Tom L. McKnight, Geography of Anglo-America, Fifth Edition, (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1979), p. 329. 213 American Canopy, pp. 225-227.
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Great Plains states to protect crops and wildlife from wind, intercept blowing snow and sand, and to provide wood products. Trees were important to President Roosevelt. In the spirit of the founding fathers’ passion for trees, in 1931 he had provided acreage at his Creek Road Farm at Hyde Park to the New York State College of Forestry to use for experimental tree planting and continued the practice during the Depression. To do so, he had birch trees cleared and encouraged planting exotic trees. That year 36,000 non-native trees were planted at his estate. As Roosevelt entered the White House he made it clear to the public that there would be federal and state cooperation to provide employment, and as part of that he had a reforestation plan in mind.214 His interest in trees, forest management, and finding a solution to aid plains farmers all came together in the Prairie States Forestry Project, which also solidified the place of the Chinese / Siberian elm in American tree selection for urban environments. Roosevelt secured funds for the project via Executive Order using WPA funds, under the authority of the Clarke-McNary Act (Public Law No. 270), which had been passed on June 7, 1924. Under Section 4 of the Act, the Secretary of Agriculture was authorized to cooperate with states for the “…procurement, production, and distribution of forest-tree seeds and plants for the purpose of establishing wind breaks, shelterbelts, and farm wood lots upon denuded or nonforested [sic] lands…”215 Each shelterbelt length would depend upon the site, but the width was typically from 100 to 165’. The rows were planted 10’ apart with tall trees in the center, flanked by medium height trees and then shrubs. The trees that were generally planted included black locust, catalpa, Chinese elm, cottonwood, green ash, hackberry, honey locust, mulberry, Osage orange, pecan, plum, Russian olive, red cedar, and walnut. By 1942, 145 million trees had been planted in 18,600 miles of length (when adding the shelterbelts together), all within the original 100-mile zone anticipated by Roosevelt and the U.S. Forest Service.216
Figure 8. Section of 1934 Shelterbelt Source: John Ball, Dave Erickson, and Brian Garbisch, “Windbreaks: the New Prairie Forests,” Illustration taken from Shelterbelts for South Dakota, Extension Circular,
214 His plan ultimately resulted in the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, that employed young men in every state. Franklin D. Roosevelt, letter to Nelson C. Brown at New York State College of Forestry, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, March 8, 1933, file 128 at
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A Brief History of Urban Trees in New Mexico
disease. Although the efforts seemed hopeful, fighting Dutch elm disease was a losing battle. In 1938, a massive hurricane hit the east coast and additional elm trees were lost. Although many had been previously destroyed in a purposeful manner, using defined procedures, these were razed by a natural disaster and when the storm was over, the fallen trees were taken to dumps and junkyards. This resulted in an ideal breeding ground for Dutch elm disease and as a result the transmission rate after the hurricane increased by 258%. At that time, government funds were being diverted to the potential war effort in Europe, so continuing the fungus eradication program ended. During the war, trees that had stood for hundreds of years were lost to Dutch elm disease. Americans were beginning to learn that there was no way to control the fungus and that their favorite urban tree was on the decline.217 During the 1930s, the American elm no longer appeared to be an option for trees in cities and towns, and the cottonwood was identified as the enemy by many in Albuquerque and dying there and in other New Mexican cities. Concurrently, Chinese elm had been introduced into popular use for arid environments through U.S. Forest Service publications and advice, the Prairie States Forestry Project, other Department of Agriculture shelterbelts, experimental stations associated with the New Mexico College of Agriculture, and they had previously been used in projects at UNM and subdivision developments in Albuquerque. As New Deal projects were being planned throughout New Mexico, the Chinese elm was viewed as a favorite tree to replace those that weren’t working well in urban areas, and it had become institutionalized as such. After Clyde Tingley had become mayor, he had sponsored a series of measures to beautify Albuquerque that resulted in street trees being planted, weeds cleared from vacant lots, and trash swept from gutters. In 1933, he pushed to develop parks for each neighborhood in town. The parks were to include blue grass and hundreds of trees.218 That year the Albuquerque city nursery was begun adjacent to the zoo to provide trees for the parks. It was planted using 2,000 Chinese elm trees that were obtained by Clyde Tingley from a resource in Nebraska (likely the headquarters for the Prairie States Forestry Project). Each year, large seedlings were to be given to Albuquerque citizens and smaller ones to other New Mexico communities that requested them.219 In 1935, local nursery owners felt that the largest issue for their businesses was that the city had been handing out free Chinese elm trees. If residents could get free trees, they would not buy from the local nurseries. J.T. Young stated that “…the sale of the Chinese elm trees had been one of our chief sources of profit, and I am sure that more harm had been wrought by the local nurseryman by such free distribution than anything else that could have befallen us.”220 Although the practice was adversely affecting a few businessmen, Tingley surely felt that the greater good was to provide free shade for residents who were struggling with the Depression, as well as
217 American Canopy, pp. 225-227. 218 “Development of City Parks by Conservation Workers Discussed by Municipal, State Commissions,” Albuquerque Journal, September 6, 1933, p. 1. 219 “City Can Furnish Trees for Gallup,” Albuquerque Journal, August 21, 1953, p. 16. 220 “Free Tree Distribution,” Albuquerque Journal, November 29, 1935, p. 6.
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supporting his political aspirations. As a result of that program Spruce Street in the Spruce Park neighborhood (originally the Country Club) was lined with Siberian elm.221 In 1935, Tingley became governor of New Mexico and began to work towards obtaining as many federal dollars from the FERA programs as possible. The largest beneficiary of his actions was UNM, which received over $1,000,000 in project funds that supported a 600 percent increase of enrollment at the school and resulted in planting numerous trees.222 During that period many courthouses and schools were also constructed or improved, and a major project that affected Silver City was completed. The Big Ditch at Silver City had been created in 1895, when a major flood on San Vicente Arroyo crashed through the town and demolished houses and businesses on either side and created a deep crevice. The event was described in the local July 21 newspaper: The waters of the first flood had receded below the danger limit at 11:30 when the great bank of black clouds which darkened the sky to the northwest came in contact with the towering peak of Bear mountain the highest in all the Pinos [stet] Altos range. As if the bottom of the sea were punctured by the peak, a vast volume of water descended, accumulating in force as it converged in streams from the mountain sides, making a river in the canon which leads through the town. At 11:45 this flood struck the town, in an immense wave, twelve feet in height and three hundred feet in width…through the heart of town, through the principal business streets it swept, entering the houses through every crack and crevice, filling cellars full and overflowing, pouring and surging bursting open doors and smashing large windows, running though the first floor of nearly all the houses in a depth of two to four feet.223 The resulting gaping ditch was stabilized under a contract with a local construction company. By the 1970s, the resulting river through town was portrayed as being created by the “City Ordinance from Heaven” that had exposed bedrock and numerous springs.224 Although it was viewed as a blessing almost 100 years later, at the time, the town had lost its Main Street and its buildings had been ravaged by the flood. The ditch that had resulted from the flood was lined with concrete during a 1930s WPA project, and the later made into a park by the SCS. In Portales, WPA funding was being used to add trees to the Eastern New Mexico University campus as water lines were extended.225 Under separate funding, the Daughters of the American Revolution planted 21 trees at a new park to celebrate George Washington’s birthday.226 At Santa Rosa, the town planned to purchase the El Rito Creek and Blue Hole site for a park and petitioned for WPA funds. By 1934, crews were grading the site, some with their own teams and
221 No author, “Walking Tour of the Spruce Park Historic District,” October 22, 1983, TACA, MSS 774 BC, Box 1, Folder “Neighborhood Tours 1983-89,” University of New Mexico, Center for Southwest Research. 222 Albuquerque, p. 365. 223 No author, “What is the Big Ditch? Part II: The Story of the River from Nowhere,” Silver City’s Historical Guide and Downtown Shopper, April 29-May 6, 1977, on file in George Pearl Papers, MSS 782 BC, Box 9, Folder 27, UNM, Center for Southwest Research (CSWR). 224 Ibid. 225 Roosevelt County, p. 321. 226 Roosevelt County, p. 233.
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wagons. The rocks for canals and retaining walls were brought from local quarries. Once the walls were complete and the ponding area was filled, the crews planted Chinese elm and cottonwood to create groves. It took several WPA projects to create the lake, quarry stone, and construct a caretaker’s house. By 1940, Santa Rosa was promoting their park as ‘Crystal Lake’ and marketing to Route 66 motorists to visit the lake to picnic and swim in the spring-fed waters.227 To improve the Clayton school district and to bring employment to his fellow citizens, the superintendent of schools, Raymond Huff pursued school construction projects through the WPA that ran from 1935 to 1941. Huff’s plan was to not only use the buildings for the school, but also as resources for the larger population of Clayton. He designed the projects to use local labor and materials, but the trees that were planted were the Chinese elm.228 When the first building of the school complex was complete (gymnasium) in 1935, Clyde Tingley traveled to the dedication and stated, “This building will stand forever as a monument to the people of Union County whose interest and efforts have provided a place where young and old alike can meet for social, educational and recreational purposes.”229 In Carrizozo, the Carrizozo Business Men’s Club had raised enough money to purchase 16 empty lots between Alamogordo and Tularosa avenues, and in 1935, they attained a matching grant from the WPA to construct sidewalks, plant trees, build a windmill, add a water malpais fountain, and lay sod and the Lincoln County News stated that the park would become the “beauty spot of Carrizozo.”230 Although there were numerous WPA projects throughout New Mexico, and UNM received the lion’s share of funding, one of Tingley’s favorite projects was in Hot Springs, New Mexico.231 Hot Springs was the logical location for a children’s hospital that would include hydrotherapy. The new hospital was based on the facility that President Roosevelt used to ease his pain. In 1920, Roosevelt was the Democratic party’s candidate for president and in 1921 he was stricken with polio. He worked with doctors on physiotherapy, but without the results he was looking for, so in the fall of 1924 he took the advice of a friend and went to an aging resort called the Meriwether Inn at Warm Springs, Georgia. Over the next four years, he spent much of his time at Warm Springs bathing in the hot pool. His faith in the therapy led him to purchase the resort and ultimately spend a third of his fortune to upgrade the facility. He hired Henry J. Toombs as the architect to refurbish the resort, build a medical facility, and add a row of patients’ residences.232 As Roosevelt was updating the facility at Warm Springs, Clyde Tingley had become the city manager of Albuquerque. The Tingleys were childless, but each year they held Christmas parties for the children of Albuquerque. Carrie Tingley realized that children who were often afflicted
227 David Kammer, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Park Lake Historic District,” 1995, Section 8, Page 4. 228 The survey associated with this narrative documented Siberian elm and ash trees as well at the school. 229 David Kammer, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Clayton Public Schools Historic District,” 1996, Section 8, Page 9. 230 “Carrizozo Commercial Historic District,” Section 9, Pages 30-31. 231 This town is now known as Truth or Consequences. 232 David Kammer, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Carrie Tingley Hospital Historic District,” 2005, Section 8, Page 14.
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with polio, scoliosis, and talipes had no public support. There was very little funding at the time, but when Clyde was elected Governor in 1934, he planned on using funds through the WPA. He was enamored with Roosevelt’s political views, wanted to support his wife’s charitable acts, and noted that Hot Springs, New Mexico might support a facility that could be like Roosevelt’s Warm Springs, which would also bring personal attention from the President.233 Hot Springs town boosters responded to Tingley’s desire to construct a hospital in their town and purchased a tourist camp for $10,000 to serve as the site for the new facility. In October 1935, Tingley met with Roosevelt and Keith Morgan, vice-president of the Warms Springs Foundation; because of the meeting, the president became personally involved in the project and New Mexico’s WPA architect, Willard C. Kruger, was introduced to Toombs. In November, the WPA announced that it had approved $274,954 for the hospital project. The funds were augmented by $47,000 over the next two years to add staff quarters and a power plant.234 Because of the President and Toomb’s involvement, as well as the fact that it was designed from the outset as a children’s hospital, the hospital at Hot Springs, New Mexico assumed national significance for the treatment of polio and other crippling diseases. As the project neared completion in 1937, Tingley drove the entire legislature from Santa Fe to see the facility. In April, he met with appointees at the hospital and brought with him 100 Chinese elm trees, presumably from the nursery adjacent to the Albuquerque zoo. That day he planted the first tree at the hospital grounds.235 As other towns around New Mexico were upgrading services to their town and adding Chinese elm to the landscape, Tingley’s administration continued to provide Albuquerque with free trees. It had become an annual tradition to provide 5,000 trees to residents. That year, 5,000 trees and 60,000 seedlings were available at the nursery near the zoo. The extra seedlings were grown in Albuquerque were supplied to other communities in New Mexico that had asked Tingley to provide them. It was estimated that by the early 1940s, Clyde Tingley’s policies had resulted in 200,000 Chinese elm being distributed in Albuquerque and other towns.236 Although the Chinese elm was a favorite, many other types of trees were being added to the New Mexico landscape. In 1937, 15 counties in the state participated in Arbor Day, and 7,000 trees were planted by school children in cooperation with the SCS and the U.S. Forest Service; more than half of them were planted in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. The trees that were planted included Chinese elm, honey locust, Russian mulberry, and the Osage orange for areas with less water. In locations with more moisture they planted catalpa and cottonwood; in arroyo areas they used black locust and choke cherry to bind the soils; and when they needed a hedge they planted Siberian pea trees. Other trees included the American elm, piñon, ditch willow, wild
233 “Carrie Tingley Hospital Historic District,” Page 15. 234 “Carrie Tingley Hospital Historic District,” Page 16. 235 “Appointees Chosen for Hot Springs Children’s Hospital,” Albuquerque Journal, April 7, 1937, p. 11. 236 “City Will Give Away Chinese Elm Trees Las Week of March,” March 6, 1942, p. 14; and “Colfax County Gets 8000 Elm Seedlings: 200,000 Distributed Over State in 10 Years,” March 18, 1943, p. 7, both articles are in Albuquerque Journal.
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237 “City and County School Children Plant 3,290 Trees, Join in Program Participated in by 15 Counties in State on Arbor Day,” April 3, 1937, p. 2; and “State Co-operation,” April 1, 1937, p. 7, both articles are in Albuquerque Journal.
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8.0 POST RELIEF (1943-1976)
During this period, the genera of tree that became available to city governments and the urban dweller continued to expand. Some were brought in by governmental agencies and others through commercial nurseries, that by using roads and the trucking industry had expanded the speed and area of delivery, as well as increasing the varieties that were available. By 1943, the black locust was no longer a favorite for urban areas, but it was generally used by farmers to stabilize and provide nitrogen to the soil, serve as windbreaks, and the wood was used for fence posts. The practice had originally begun as the tree began to be favored by urban residents, and continued long past the black locust popularity along residential streets.238 8.1 Federal Government Changes Changes for the cities of New Mexico were taking place, funds were no longer available from the New Deal programs and affected not only the loss of the American elm, when the funds were diverted to support the war effort, tree give-away programs were curtailed. Once World War II ended, the federal government began to focus on developing wind breaks for farmers using exotic species, and less on providing trees for urban environments. In 1945, the SCS in Albuquerque distributed 124,000 trees and shrubs to New Mexico farmers and ranchers so they could create windbreaks. The same windbreak tree species that the SCS provided to farmers, although cities were not the focus, began to find their way into urban environments as well. The large quantity and genera of trees that were distributed by the SCS included: 32,775 Chinese elms; 27,250 Russian olive; 13,225 thornless honey locust; 7,725 black locust; 5,525 Rocky Mountain red cedar; 4,950 crack willow; 3,400 American elm; 3,025 eastern black walnut; 1,750 Russian mulberry; 2,225 golden willow; and 2,150 peachleaf willow. Trees and plants that were delivered in smaller amounts included: ailanthus, Siberian pea tree; Northern catalpa, common hackberry; river hawthorn; Arizona cypress; New Mexico olive; green ash, Osage orange; Virginia creeper; potted ponderosa pine; narrowleaf poplar, squawbush; Hansen rose, red climbing raspberry, Himalaya berry, Gooding willow, Mexican elder, buffaloberry; Western snowberry; and Arizona grape.239 While the SCS began to deliver exotic species to farmers, Mayor Clyde Tingley continued to provide free trees to Albuquerque residents, but because of the lack of federal funding, the quantity of trees that were available was less than during the New Deal period. In February of 1946, the mayor announced that there were 500 Chinese elm that would be free to residents who could ‘dig them up.’ The trees averaged 3” diameter and 14’ tall. The first 50 trees were provided to the Fish and Wildlife Service, 12 to the Church of God on North Fourth Street, and the rest to those who came on a first come, first serve basis.240 Governmental agencies, institutions, and homeowners were still desirous of the Chinese elm. It was affordable or even free, grew fast, took little water, and provided shade.
238 “Farm Trees Are ‘Taxpayers,’” Clovis News Journal, February 25, 1943, p. 5. 239 “124,000 Trees Being Distributed to New Mexico Farmers by Soil Conservation Service: Will make for Better Rural Living, Says Forestry Expert,” Albuquerque Journal, February 8, 1945, p. 7. 240 “Trees Go Fast, Only 40 Left,” Albuquerque Journal, February 19, 1946, p. 3.
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Albuquerque was not the only entity handing out trees in New Mexico, each Arbor Day many communities provided free trees. In 1949, the City of Santa Fe celebrated Arbor Day by handing out 10,000 honey and black locust, mulberry, hackberry, green ash, American elm, Chinese elm, and Toumey ash. Weekly lessons in tree culture were given at the schools, and children and teachers were asked to plant trees at their homes.241 Holloman Air Force Base (AFB) planted 20,000 trees in 1950, including Russian olive, honey and black locust, Siberian pea, Russian mulberry, green ash, Chinese elm, spruce and other small evergreens. The soil for the project was taken from mountain areas, where servicemen dug ditches for free and a plow was borrowed from the county to cultivate the soil.242 In a similar effort in 1952, Alamogordo developed a plan to re-landscape Alameda Park, one block at a time. The plan included citizens traveling to Tularosa or La Luz Canyon to collect trees that were at least three to four feet high. The genera to be collected and planted were to be mountain cottonwood, weeping willow, black locust and non-bearing mulberry––trees that would do better with the lowered water table than the cottonwood had fared. At the park, the city had staked out lines for residents to plant along that were 55’ distant from Highway 54 and 40’ apart.243 The Parks and Recreation Board was created in Albuquerque in 1953. At that time, there were 57 parks at a total of 350 acres and the city owned an additional 270 acres on the yet-to-be- developed east mesa. Additionally, residents who faced onto ‘parkways’ or areas with planted medians were expected to maintain them, as the city did not have funds for such activities. The city provided water, but felt that since the residents were the individuals that were receiving the benefit, they should maintain the parks.244 Although there was a bond, it was for the installation and addition of parks, it could not be used for the maintenance and upkeep of the existing parks and at the time, grass was not being adequately watered or cut; it is likely that trees were suffering as well. However, because trees had a low initial cost and were comparably lower in cost to maintain than grass, and that they would take much time to grow and mature, it was recommended that when new parks were established that the shade trees be planted at the same time that recreation equipment was installed. At the time, the city was still using the nursery at Rio Grande Park city park tree stock.245 Gallup joined the cities with Chinese elm in 1953, when they requested 100,000 Chinese elm seedlings from Clyde Tingley.246 In addition, Albuquerque gave out 2,800 trees that were extra from the trees that were being raised for city parks, including 1,500 Chinese elm, 325 black locust trees, 300 Russian olive, 225 male cottonwood trees, 200 honey locust trees, 150 Arizona
241 “Will Give School Kids 10,000 Young Trees,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, April 20, 1949, p. 7. 242 “Landscape Plants Cause for Nursery,” Alamogordo News, March 9, 1950, p. 1. 243 “Will Plant 140 Shade Trees In Community Planting, Sunday,” Alamogordo News, Mary 20, 1952, p. 1. 244 City of Albuquerque, “City of Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1953 Annual Report,” and John A. Chase, Chairman of the Parks and Recreation Board, letter to Members of the City Commission, September 17, 1984, both on file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 2, Folder 7, UNM, CSWR. 245 “Preliminary Recommendations of the Albuquerque Parks and Recreation Board,” and John A. Chase, Chairman Parks and Recreation Board, letter for City Commission, September 21, 1954, both on file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 2, Folder 7, UNM, CSWR. It was noted that although Rio Grande Park had trees for use in parks, before the park commission could allocate them for use, they had been given to private property owners. 246 “City Can Furnish Trees for Gallup.”
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ash, and 100 American elm.247 That same year, the difference between the Chinese and Siberian elm was finally discussed. In an Albuquerque Journal article that was providing advice on selecting shade trees (no author was credited), it was noted that the most common shade tree in Albuquerque was the Chinese elm, but the author pointed out that, in fact, the trees in town were not Chinese elm, they were Siberian elm. He seemed to want to encourage planters away from the elm and remarked that other trees that grew well in New Mexico were the Lombardy poplar, willow, honey locust, Russian olive, tamarisk, and native cottonwood. He felt that the Lombardy poplar wasn’t a good shade tree because of its vertical growth and that the honey locust was problematic because it is thorny with large seed pods. The author stated that maples, oaks and sycamore had been grown in valley areas, but, as with other types of elm, that they were not the best tree for the New Mexican environment. He ended with touting the Russian olive as a windbreak and stating that one might use the tamarisk, but he did note that it had the capacity to propagate itself as quickly as a weed.248 As governmental agencies were providing free trees, and local experts were providing advice, nurseries continued to bring in new stock to the ever-increasing urban sprawl of New Mexico’s largest city. In 1954, a local nursery advertised they had thousands of trees to select from. Their tree stock included male cottonwood, Carolina poplar, globe willow, silver leaf maple, moraine locust, flowering honey locust, Arizona ash, mountain ash, American elm, Moline elm, hackberry, Russian olive, Western catalpa, California Sycamore, European sycamore, mimosa, Lombardy and Simone poplar, Wisconsin and corkscrew willow, sugar maple, globe locust, green ash, Kingam mulberry (fruitless), Chinese elm, Box elder, liquid amber, and catalpic bingei (umbrella tree).249 8.2 Highways and Street Trees President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid-Highway Act on June 29, 1956, which authorized the development of the interstate highway system. The new system included the design and construction of 41,000 miles of high-quality roads to tie the nation together. The Interstates were to be completed by 1975 and would provide expedient means of transportation and commerce throughout the country. According to the “New Mexico Highways Report to the People” of 1956, New Mexico had 11,702 miles of state road. The report enthusiastically supported the new federal act, stating, “…the New Mexico State Highway Department welcomes the opportunity to participate in building the network of roads so essential to the nation’s defense and the expanding economy.”250 On July 1, 1957, the state legislature enacted a bill that provided for the development of a state Forest Conservation Commission that would cooperate with the federal government under authority of the Clarke-McNary Act, which had been used to establish the Prairie States Forestry Project during the 1930s. Since 1926, the state had operated under a cooperative agreement between the New Mexico State Land Commissioner and the U.S. Forest Service to manage state
247 “Free Tree Registration Gets Under Way Today,” Albuquerque Journal, February 26, 1953, p. 8. 248 “Free Booklet Describes Best Shade Trees Here,” May 4, 1952, p. 4; and “Selection of Shade Trees Is a Problem Here,” November 22, 1953, p. 33, both articles in Albuquerque Journal. 249 Nursery advertisement, Albuquerque Journal, January 24, 1954, p. 32. 250 New Mexico State Highway Department, Planning Division, “New Mexico Highways Report to the People,” 1956, p. 3. On file at New Mexico State Highway and Transportation Department Library.
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forest land. With the new legislation, the state was determined to develop its own program, and on December 1 the organization was established as a state entity with funding.251 A seven- member commission was created, and it worked under Section 4 of the Clarke-McNary Act to develop a Tree Planting Program that would allow a state department to receive a matching grant to sell trees. Prior to the establishment of the Forest Conservation Commission in New Mexico, ranchers, farmers, and timber owners had purchased stock from the State Nursery in Fort Collins, Colorado and by 1956, New Mexicans had purchased over 30,000 seedlings from the Colorado source. With the development of the in-state program, in addition to helping citizens, trees could be raised and provided to residents and other agencies.252 Tree planting became one of the missions of the new state commission and it reduced the need for the SCS role.253 As the state was organizing to take over forestry, by the 1950s, adding color and flowering trees to urban environments had become important. Numerous new genera and species were brought into New Mexican urban areas.254 As new trees were being planted in cities, planners began to look for new opportunities to plant them. In 1962, Albuquerque created a plan for the development of medians, dividers, and border areas on city streets.255 By the early 1960s, the female cottonwood, black locust, and Chinese elm were out of style and seen as the least desirable tree to use for New Mexican cities. At that time, ranch houses were being constructed throughout the country and the style was to include low growing foundation plantings with a tree or two at the side to frame the design. The Santa Fe New Mexican was providing information to northern New Mexico residents on the types of trees that would be best to use. The author recommended the ailanthus, Russian olive, and honey locust as good trees for the soil with a low level of care. He felt that the soft maple, green and mountain ash, fruitless mulberry and Ponderosa pine, Hopa crabapple, purple leaf plum and flowering peach, catalpa, and walnut were good shade trees. But, the most desirable were the horsechesnut and the cut-leaf silver-bark birch.256 Two hundred years after Lamy first brought the horsechesnut to Santa Fe, the tree was back in style! The first full year of the Tree Planting Program was considered by New Mexico Department of State Forestry as a success in 1960. The trees were being provided for windbreak and
251 Ray S. Bell and John G. Baird, “Operating Plan New Mexico Forestry Department, F.Y. 1958,” New Mexico Forestry Division Records, Forest Conservation-Minutes, Manuals, Rules and Regs-1957-1977, Serial Number 7906, on file at New Mexico Records Center & Archives. 252 Ray S. Bell, “New Mexico State Forest Conservation Commission, July 8, 1957,” New Mexico Forestry Division Records, Forest Conservation – Minutes, Manuals, Rules and Regs – 1957-1977, Serial Number 7906, Folder 1957- 1972, on file at New Mexico Records Center & Archives. 253 “Annual Report New Mexico Department of State Forestry, 52nd Fiscal Year, July1, 1963 through June 30, 1964,” New Mexico Forestry Division Records, Forest Conservation – Minutes, Manuals, Rules and Regs – 1957-1977, Serial Number 7906, on file at New Mexico Records Center & Archives. 254 Albuquerque Journal, May 2, 1957, p. 17. 255 City of Albuquerque, Parks and Recreation Department, “A Plan for Development and Maintenance of Dividers Within the Albuquerque Area,” December 28, 1962, on file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 3, UNM, CSWR. 256 Joe M. Clark, “Shade Trees Are Valuable Addition to the Landscape,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, May 29, 1960, p. 24; and “Careful Selection of Good Shade Trees Improves Property Via New Patio Beauty, Better Landscape,” The Santa Fe New Mexican, September 10, 1961, p. 23.
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reforestation and the department had received $4,200 in matching Federal funding.257 During FY 1961, the agency distributed 150,000 seedlings, which was 40,000 more trees than they previous year. As they had been by individuals in the past, the seedlings for the program were received from Colorado State Forestry Nursery and local nurseries. During the year, forestry aided two commercial enterprises in developing Christmas tree plantations in New Mexico. The next year a law was passed to discourage the theft of trees on private, state, or federal lands for use during Christmas.258 Las Cruces had planted a considerable number of trees throughout the years, and by 1961 most newcomers were surprised by how green the city was. The Las Cruces Sun-News listed trees that were easy to plant: cottonwood, black locust, Aleppo pine, Arizona and Italian cypress, Arizona ash, Chinese elm, mulberry, Russian olive, red cedar, Austrian pine, desert and weeping willow, globe, and American arborvitae. Other trees that were recommended for the area, but may have not been as easy to grow included: pecan trees, Lombardy poplar, sycamore, Mexican elder, honey locust, red bud, jujube, Italian stone pine, bearing apricot, purple leaf plum, mock orange, tamarisk, China berry, Cedar of Lebanon and Deodar cedar. The author noted that a great deal of planting had been done by Frank Feather who had owned a nursery, then obtained a master’s degree at NMSU and then became the director of campus maintenance and improvement. He set out on a mission to ‘architecturally landscape’ the campus. Additionally, Southwest Builders donated an acre of trees to the city of Las Cruces, with one-third each going to the city, schools, and the university. Tree planting and garden improving was prolific as subdivisions continued to grow in the Las Cruces community. By 1961, there were five nurseries and feed stores in Las Cruces that were selling trees.259 In 1964, windbreaks in Grants were planted using 13,000 seedlings and 90% of them survived. Many conifers were planted in town, but not as many survived because while the windbreak plantings received supplemental water, the town trees did not and most of the conifers were planted in areas that were outside their normal zones.260 8.3 Beautification In 1965, The Beautification Act was passed. It had been spurred on by the First Lady, Claudia “Ladybird” Johnson. Ladybird was concerned that the term ‘beautification’ would be seen as something cosmetic or trivial, so she emphasized that it meant more, including clean water, clean air, clean roadsides, safe waste disposal and preservation of valued old landmarks as well as great parks and wilderness areas.261 The President’s Council on Recreation and Natural Beauty, chaired by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was created and served as a vehicle for ensuring
257 Ray S. Bell, “New Mexico State Forestry minutes, April 4, 1960,” New Mexico Forestry Division Records, Forest Conservation – Minutes, Manuals, Rules and Regs – 1957-1977, Serial Number 7906, on file at New Mexico Records Center & Archives. 258 New Mexico Department of State Forestry, “Annual Report New Mexico Department of State Forestry, 51st Fiscal Year, July 1, 1962 through June 30, 1963,” New Mexico Forestry Division Records, Forest Conservation – Minutes, Manuals, Rules and Regs – 1957-1977, Serial Number 7906, on file at New Mexico Records Center & Archives. 259 “Greenery Here Is Amazing Newcomers To Las Cruces,” Las Cruces Sun-News, March 26, 1961, p. 7. 260 Annual Report, State Forestry, 52nd Fiscal Year, p. 13. 261 “First Lady Biography: Lady Bird Johnson,”
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the conservation message went across America and worked to encouraging local efforts, including anti-litter campaigns. Beautification included everything from site cleanup to remove blight and litter to planting of trees. Towns across New Mexico had participated in beautification projects.262
During the same period, on a beautification quest of her own, an Albuquerque city commissioner, Mrs. Rosalie Doolittle suggested a three- to five-year plan to eliminate the “obnoxious Siberian elm tree.”263 She called the seeds “the worst pests the gardener and homeowner has to fight” and she called for a law to make it illegal to own or plant the Siberian elm, although if it was pruned yearly one could keep their tree. She added that since the city gave the trees away and did so long after they know the faults, they city should bear the cost of removal.264 In response to Mrs. Doolittle, a Herbert Brownwell sent a letter to the editor in which he stated that the Siberian elm is hardy. He noted that the tree would survive in New Mexico where maples or the American elm would not. He felt that cleaning seeds and twigs was a normal part of having trees, and that it would be okay for the city to advocate not planting any new Siberian elm, but that to cut down all the trees would be “savage and barbaric, a slaughter of old friends.”265 There were residents in Albuquerque who understood the city was stuck with the tree, but they pointed out that if the Siberian elm was pruned properly, it could mimic the American elm and be quite graceful. Even Mrs. Doolittle alluded to proper pruning in her crusade to the rid the city of the tree. Mrs. Eunice Kalloch, who during her life served as a president of the Albuquerque Civic Beautification Committee and chairman of the Governor’s Committee for State Beautification, understood pruning and stated, “Maintenance. That’s the whole thing…unless trees are properly maintained you don’t get good results…if they [Siberian elm] are properly taken care of…they can be beautiful.”266 Although the tree had a few fans, the debate continued to rage on. In a 1966 letter to the editor, a resident of Albuquerque suggested that the city tax the elms, because he felt that the trees were a “marvelous and untapped source of income.” The elms were seen by residents as pests, as they damaged sidewalk, street pavement, and utilities. They caused allergies and the bill for cleaning up all the seeds was large. So, he felt that it would be a win/win situation to tax the elms and raise money for the city.267 As the debate over the Siberian elm continued in New Mexico, on the national front, two years after the Beautification Act passed, President Johnson issued a proclamation declaring 1967 a “Youth Natural Beauty and Conservation Year.” His idea was to encourage youth and adults to work together to create greater beauty for the country and to “instill a greater interest and
262 Aztec, Los Lunas, Raton, and Tucumcari, Report of Community Beautification Activities, 1966, on file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 4, Folder 5, UNM, CSWR. 263 “Termed by Pest Expert: City Urged to Outlaw Siberian Elm Trees,” Albuquerque Journal, February 11, 1965, p. 36. 264 “City Commission Asked To Outlaw Chinese Elms,” Albuquerque Journal, May 5, 1959, p. 7; and “Termed by Pest Expert: City Urged to Outlaw Siberian Elm Trees,” Albuquerque Journal, February 11, 1965, p. 36. 265 Herbert Brownwell, “Slaughter of Friends,” Albuquerque Journal, February 15, 1965, p. 5. 266 Marcus Walton, “The Trees We Love to Hate,” Impact: Albuquerque Journal Magazine, April 10, 1984, p. 6. 267 Cliff Lloyd, “Tax the Elms,” Albuquerque Journal, February 10, 1966, p. 5.
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dedication among all people to become more aware of the beauty of America for an investment in better environment and better citizenship.”268 The work continued into 1967: . In Artesia, the college planned to plant trees and were looking for: eight mimosas, 20 fruitless mulberry trees, three ask, nine locust trees, five ponderosa pine, two pinon, six Colorado blue spruce and many plants. The town also planted trees at a tourist park near the airport.269 . At Mora, the town was planning on landscaping the courthouse and Mora County Community Center by planting lawns, trees, and shrubs; in Espanola, the town was adamant that street medians should be planted with grass; and in Las Cruces the Women’s Improvement Association Garden Department was planting shrubs and updating medians in their city.270 . In Albuquerque there was a Gift Tree Committee that planted trees at the Erna Fergusson Branch Library with plans for more planting on Ridgecrest Drive (in the 1928 development of Parkland Hills), Bernalillo County Courthouse, Los Griegos Branch Library and Columbus Park.271 . The Portales Women’s Club planted flowering crab trees in city park.272 . In Gallup, the students at Indian Hills Elementary School planted Russian olive and Lombardy poplar.273 . In Farmington elementary school children planted 30 Navajo willow trees to “eliminate glare from wrecked cars in a storage yard next to our school.”274 That same year there were some beautification failures: . The Torrance County Citizen reported that Estancia’s streets were unpaved and even worse, had volunteer trees and corn growing at the sidewalks.275 . El Independente stated that the Albuquerque businesses had a complete contempt for the city and those that would try to beautify it and gave an example of the Bellas Hess Department store that had a “complete, inexcusable, lack of landscaping” and gave the
268 “The Environmental First Lady,”
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project a “minus-civic-pride citation: a mixed bouquet of wild onions, tumbleweed, and spreading goat-heads.”276 By 1967, the Big Ditch in Silver City had become an area where juvenile delinquents could escape to after creating disorder downtown. As a result, the American Association of University Women supported developing and beautifying the ditch. Although it had been previously upgraded for park use by the SCS, by the 1970s it was seen by residents as an embarrassment.277 During that decade, a federal program allowed Silver City to redevelop the Big Ditch as a park. The proposed project was in the city masterplan and included updating existing park areas, adding a new footbridge, and adding landscaping and terracing and planting a variety of native and exotic flora.278 By 1969, no matter the feelings about the Siberian elm, Albuquerque had been infested by the elm beetle and the citizens were working to save the trees. John Gray, a local nurseryman, sprayed seven trees in Roosevelt Park with an oil based insecticide. Within an hour the beetles began to fall from the trees and Gray felt that he had demonstrated that the beetle could be controlled. After the demonstration, Parks and Recreation Department director, Robert Burgan, asked members of the Albuquerque Tree and Shrubbery Association, the County, and NMSU to develop specifications that the city could use to begin spraying trees to remove the beetle in a more holistic manner.279 As Albuquerque was dealing with pests for the Chinese elm, in which the city was so heavily invested, in 1971, 41 years after American trees were first infected with the disease, the USDA announced that they believed they were close to eliminating Dutch elm disease. By that time, the disease had killed around 16 million elms and affected how agencies and the public dealt with trees that became diseased. As the public was coming around to wanting to save diseased species rather than rid their community of the trees, the USDA was experimenting with inoculations of chemical compounds to create a disease resistant elm, including grafting European and Siberian elm to develop a new species that would be resistant to the disease and provide shade for urban environments.280
276 Opinion article in El Independente, August 18, 1967, clipping on file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 13, UNM, CSWR. 277 No author, “Proposed Big Ditch Riverwalk Park,” newsletter located in George Pearl Papers, MSS 782 BC, Box 9, Folder 25, UNM, CSWR. 278 Ibid. 279 “City May Begin War Against Elm Beetles,” Albuquerque Journal, August 6, 1969, p. 6. 280 “Scourge of Elms May Be Close To Eradication,” Albuquerque Journal, June 27, 1971, p. 50.
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9.0 SUMMARY
Urban trees in New Mexico, for all intents and purposes, began with Bishop Lamy in Santa Fe. Although the Spanish imported fruit trees, most of the trees in the settled cities were gone by the time that Lamy arrived. The bishop planted eight trees that have stood the test of time and endured in the New Mexico landscape. But, humans being what we are, are always enthralled with fashion, science, and trends and are always looking for the next best thing. Over the years there were 53 more types of trees that were imported and planted in the state.281 The federal government started during the 1800s to encourage Americans to plant exotic trees, Clyde Tingley gave away over 200,000 Chinese elm during his political career, and the State Forestry Department gave over 2 million trees to the public in a four-year period from 1963-1977. Whatever values are placed on those actions and their effect on the development of New Mexico, one universal truth is that humans like trees and one of the first things they do in a new environment, is to plant a tree. Trees have a recognized place in the development on every civilized community. Their presence creates a home-like atmosphere and is suggestive of permanence. Their absence suggests a transient or unesthetic population.282
281 This includes the trees that were documented during research for this report, there may be more. 282 “Trees for Shade and Ornamental Planting in Arizona and New Mexico.”
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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“New Mexico State Forestry Minutes, April 4, 1960,” New Mexico Forestry Division Records, Forest Conservation – Minutes, Manuals, Rules and Regs – 1957-1977, Serial Number 7906. On file at New Mexico State Records Center and Archives.
Bell, Ray S. and John G. Baird. “Operating Plan New Mexico Forestry Department, F.Y. 1958.” New Mexico Forestry Division Records, Forest Conservation-Minutes, Manuals, Rules and Regs-1957-1977, Serial Number 7906. On file at New Mexico Records Center and Archives.
Burroughs, Jean M., Editor. Roosevelt County History and Heritage. Portales, New Mexico: Bishop Printing Company, 1975.
Chase, John A. Chairman of the Parks and Recreation Board, letter to Members of the City Commission, September 17, 1984. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 2, Folder 7, UNM, CSWR.
Chairman Parks and Recreation Board, letter for City Commission, September 21, 1954. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 2, Folder 7, UNM, CSWR.
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Parks and Recreation Department, “A Plan for Development and Maintenance of Dividers Within the Albuquerque Area.” December 28, 1962. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 3, UNM, CSWR.
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Hooker, Van Dorn. Only in New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000.
Horgan, Paul. Lamy of Santa Fe: His Life and Times. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975.
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Kammer, David. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Clayton Public Schools Historic District,” 1996.
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Kammer, David. (continued) National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Carrie Tingley Hospital Historic District,” 2005.
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No author. (continued) Aztec, Los Lunas, Raton, and Tucumcari, Report of Community Beautification Activities, 1966. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 4, Folder 5, UNM, CSWR.
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Pennock, Anthony. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, “Mesquite Original Townsite District of Las Cruces.” May 10, 1980.
Platt, Kenneth B. “The Taylor Grazing Act in Operation, Article 5” Squaw Butte Regional Range Experiment Station, Burns, Oregon, circular, February 28, 1940, p. 2. Located in Box 03- administration, topography-1936, Serial Number 5609, Folder holl vert. in Works Project Administration Collection at New Mexico State Records Center & Archives
Pregill, Philip and Nancy Volkman. Landscapes in History: Design and Planning in the Western Tradition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993.
Roberston, Donald B. Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History: The Desert States, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah. Caldwell, Ohio: The Caxton Printers, Ltd, 1986.
Roosevelt, Franklin D. Letter to Nelson C. Brown at New York State College of Forestry, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, March 8, 1933. File 128 at
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Rutkow, Eric. American Canopy: Trees, Forest, and the Making of a Nation. New York: Scribner, 2012.
Ryerson, Knowles A. “History and Significance of the Foreign Plant Introduction Work of the United States Department of Agriculture.” Agricultural History, Vol. 7, No. 3 (July 1933).
Simmons, Marc. Albuquerque: A Narrative History. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982.
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U.S. Forest Service, Southwestern District, “Trees for Shade and Ornamental Planting in Arizona and New Mexico,” United States Department of Agricultural, Forest Service, Southwestern District, 1927, pp. 2-9. Located in Box 03-administration, topography-1936, Serial Number 5609, Folder holl vert. in Works Project Administration Collection at New Mexico State Records Center & Archives
Van Citters, Karen, Edith Cherry, and William A. Dodge. “University of New Mexico Preservation Plan.” Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2006.
Walter, Paul A.F. and Max Frost. The Land of Sunshine: A Handbook of the Resources, Products, Industries and Climate of New Mexico. New Mexico Bureau of Immigration, Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1906.
Walter, Paul A.F. “Yesterdays In the Spanish Southwest, Sketch No. 137”, Albuquerque Journal, May 20, 1929.
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Wilson, Chris and Stefanos Polysoides, Editors. The Plazas of New Mexico. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2011.
NEWSPAPERS
Alamogordo News “Mountain Park Nurseries.” February 3, 1906, p. 4. “Landscape Plants Cause for Nursery.” March 9, 1950, p. 1. “Will Plant 140 Shade Trees In Community Planting, Sunday.” Mary 20, 1952, p. 1. “City Can Furnish Trees for Gallup.” Photograph, August 17, 1907, p. 1.
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Albuquerque Citizen “Alamogordo.” October 22, 1902, p. 6. “Incorporations.” April 22, 1903, p. 7. “Nursery Products.” December, 11, 1906, p. 7. “Carload of Trees for Otero County.” April 5, 1906, p. 2. “A. Bratina: General Merchandise and Real Estate for Sale.” May 16, 1906, p. 6. “A Carload of Trees.” February 18, 1909, p. 5. February 27, 1909, p. 7.
Albuquerque Journal “Fruit Trees. The Franklin Nurseries, Agency at Albuquerque, NM.” March 18, 1884, p. 2. “Farmington Branch Still Tied Up.” November 22, 1911, p. 6. “Forestry Experiments at Fort Bayard.” August 4, 1905, p. 2. “Fort Bayard Forestry Nursery Flourishing.” August 28, 1906, p. 7. “Forest Planting to Begin on Extensive Scale in Near Future.” January 21, 1915, p. 3. February 20, 1908, p. 7. Fabian Garcia, “Tells What Trees should be Planted on Arbor Day.” March 26, 1906, p. 7. Reprinted from the Fort Sumner Review, October 11, 1909, p. 4. “Would Cut Down Cotton Bearing Trees.” June 29, 1908, p. 8. “Tree Planting on Extensive Scale at Carlsbad.” December 19, 1909, p. 4. “Park Commission Makes Permanent Improvements.” May 19, 1911, p. 6. March 17, 1912, p. 6. September 29, 1912, p. 8. April 4, 1908, p. 8. “For Sale!” October 21, 1912, p. 5. “The Cotton Nuisance.” June 25, 1913, p. 6. “Abate the Nuisance.” June 28, 1913, p. 6. “Fifty Years Ago.” January 16, 1963, p. 4. “2,000 Black Locust Trees from Quarter’s Worth of Seeds.” May 8, 1910, p. 3. “Time to Plant Trees is Now, Say Foresters.” March 2, 1916, p. 4. March 12, 1920, p. 8. “Data on Nurseries at Forest Service.” April 12, 1921, p. 4. “Grauch [sic] to Take Charge of Gallinas Nursery.” March 19, 1914, p. 4. “Forest Service Trees Growing Well in City.” April 20, 1921, p. 3. “Citizens Have Chance to Get Fir Trees Free.” April 5, 1921, p. 7. “Tells the Kind of Trees to Plant in this Region: Bulletin Issued by Department of Agriculture Contains Valuable Advice for Shade Tree Planters.” January 28, 1918, p. 8. “Eliminate all Female Species of Cottonwoods: J.T. Young, Expert Tree Grower, Recommends American Elm and Black Locust as Best Shade Trees.” March 23, 1920, p. 2. “Preserve Shade Trees of City Says Tree Man.” February 26, 1921, p. 3. “University Heights Doings.” July 13, 1921, p. 10. “University Heights Doings.” March 21, 1922, p. 8. “Cottonwood Nuisance.” June 22, 1925, p. 6. “Society.” January 15, 1927, p. 5. “New Mexico Nurseries.” March 15, 1928, p. 8.
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Albuquerque Journal (continued) “Nurseries to Have Opening of a New Warehouse Today.” February 14, 1928, p. 3. J.T. Young, “Landscape Gardening.” February 26, 1928, p. 17. Elaborate Plan by Expert for Parkland Hills is Carried Out.” March 11, 1928, p. 11. Nursery advertisement. April 7, 1929, p. 7. Classified advertisements. March 26, 1929, p. 7. “Non-Bearing Mulberry Best for Albuquerque Home Owners, Says United States Forest Authority.” March 17, 1929, p. 19. “Pruning Shade Trees Must Be Done Scientifically or it is Harmful, Expert Tells Journal.” February 24, 1929, p. 17. “Chinese Elm Tree Nursery Successful at Blind’s School.” March 7, 1931, p. 3. W.H. Long, “Black Locust is Undesirable as Shade Trees, Because of the Pest which will Attack it: This is Statement of Government Plant Specialist Who Says Survey Shows Many Here Diseased.” February 2, p. 3. “City’s Water Table Lower Says Speaker: Pathologist in Address to Kiwanis Club, Asserts Trees Dying Because of Various Improvements.” October 9, 1930, p. 3. “Development of City Parks by Conservation Workers Discussed by Municipal, State Commissions.” September 6, 1933, p. 1. “City Can Furnish Trees for Gallup.” August 21, 1953, p. 16. “Free Tree Distribution.” November 29, 1935, p. 6. “Appointees Chosen for Hot Springs Children’s Hospital.” April 7, 1937, p. 11. “City Will Give Away Chinese Elm Trees Las Week of March.” March 6, 1942, p. 14. “Colfax County Gets 8,000 Elm Seedlings: 200,000 Distributed Over State in 10 Years.” March 18, 1943, p. 7. “City and County School Children Plant 3,290 Trees, Join in Program Participated in by 15 Counties in State on Arbor Day.” April 3, 1937, p. 2. “State Co-operation.” April 1, 1937, p. 7. “124,000 Trees Being Distributed to New Mexico Farmers by Soil Conservation Service: Will make for Better Rural Living, Says Forestry Expert.” February 8, 1945, p. 7. “Trees Go Fast, Only 40 Left.” February 19, 1946, p. 3. “Free Tree Registration Gets Under Way Today.” February 26, 1953, p. 8. “Free Booklet Describes Best Shade Trees Here.” May 4, 1952, p. 4. “Selection of Shade Trees Is a Problem Here.” November 22, 1953, p. 33. Nursery advertisement, January 24, 1954, p. 32. May 2, 1957, p. 17. “Termed by Pest Expert: City Urged to Outlaw Siberian Elm Trees.” February 11, 1965, p. 36. “City Commission Asked To Outlaw Chinese Elms.” May 5, 1959, p. 7. Herbert Brownwell. “Slaughter of Friends.” February 15, 1965, p. 5. Marcus Walton. “The Trees We Love to Hate.” Impact: Albuquerque Journal Magazine, April 10, 1984, p. 6. Cliff Lloyd. “Tax the Elms.” February 10, 1966, p. 5. “City May Begin War Against Elm Beetles.” August 6, 1969, p. 6. “Scourge of Elms May Be Close To Eradication.” June 27, 1971, p. 50.
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Artesia Daily Press Curtis and Carol Beard. “Plants Needed for Landscaping College Listed.” February 26, 1967. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 17, UNM, CSWR. “Trees Planted In Tourist Park Near Airport.” February 9, 1967. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 17, UNM, CSWR.
Las Cruces Sun-News, December 28, 1906, p. 2. March 11, 1910, p. 5. November 15, 1912, p. 2. January 1, 1915, p. 4. “Greenery Here Is Amazing Newcomers To Las Cruces.” March 26, 1961, p. 7. “Women Deserve Praise.” On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 17, UNM, CSWR.
Las Vegas Daily Optic, “Track and Train.” December 17, 1890, p. 6. “Territorial Topics.” April 22, 1891, p. 3. “Beautification drive begins in Mora,” June 12, 1967
San Juan County Index April 20, 1906, p. 4. July 8, 1904, p. 3. “Aztec Nursery.” March 9, 1906, p. 4.
The Carlsbad Current March 3, 1911, p. 3. “Plant More Shade Trees.” January 22, 1915, p. 4.
The Clayton Citizen March 25, 1916, p. 3. May 4, 1916, p. 5.
The Clovis News “Notice.” February 26, 1915, p. 4. June 11, 1915, p. 4. March 15, 1915, p. 4. April 17, 1919, p. 6.
The Deming Headlight “Baker’s New Well is a Peach.” April 28, 1911, p. 1. “Experimental Farm and Nursery.” September 27, 1912, p. 6. “Luna County World’s Fair, Trees from Seed.” September 30, 1910, p. 1. “One Cent a Word Column.” February 9, 1912, p. 5. “Trees and Shrubbery for Sanatorium.” February 5, 1915, p. 3.
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The Deming Headlight (continued) “Stark Bros. Trees Coming.” November 25, 1919, p. 7.
The Las Vegas Gazette “Nursery Notice.” November 8, 1881, p. 4. “Fruit Trees and Shrubbery.” June 22, 1881, p. 4. “Notice to the Public.” August 5, 1881, p. 4. “J. Rock’s Nurseries.” April 4, 1882, p. 1. August 18, 1883, p. 1.
The New Mexican Review “A Matter of Justice.” December 15, 188, p. 3; and Charles A. Keffer. “Order Nursery Stock Now, New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts and Experiment Station.” October 19, 1899, reprinted October 26, 1899.
The Santa Fe New Mexican August 18, 1868, p. 1. “Nursery for Sale.” January 11, 1871, p. 1. “Pomological: La Mesilla, New Mexico, March 4, 1871.” March 11, 1871, p. 21. “A Fairy Scene, The Archbishop’s Orchard and Garden––Fruits––Flowers––Shade Trees–– Vegetables––the Lake––Cuba, etc.” July 27, 1876, p. 1. “Trees for Sale.” December 7, 1880, p. 4. March 22, 1884, p. 1. “Forest Service Finishes Rio Bonito Tree Nursery.” June 7, 1907, p. 1 “Santa Fe Nursery!” April 29, 1890, p. 4. “Santa Fe Nursery.” April 17, 1894, p. 2. “City Tree Planting Successful as a Community Stunt.” February 12, 1920, p. 2. “Over 100,000 Trees Planted at Big Nursery near Las Vegas; Many and Valuable are Results of Work.” September 12, 1914, p. 4. “Saving the Cottonwoods.” Santa Fe New Mexican, reprinted from the Roswell Southwestern Dispatch, July 2, 1928, p. 4. “Will Give School Kids 10,000 Young Trees.” April 20, 1949, p. 7. Joe M. Clark, “Shade Trees Are Valuable Addition to the Landscape.” May 29, 1960, p. 24. “Careful Selection of Good Shade Trees Improves Property Via New Patio Beauty, Better Landscape.” September 10, 1961, p. 23.
The Tucumcari News and Tucumcari Times “Arbor Day.” March 31, 1906, p. 6. “Haney Summer Nursery Company” December 29, 1906, p. 6. J.E. Mundell, “The Tree Varieties for Tucumcari,” January 28, 1914, p. 1. May 27, 1915, p. 8. September 9, 1915, p. 4. August 19, 1915, p. 8. “The City Beautiful.” March 14, 1913, p.1.
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The Tucumcari News and Tucumcari Times (continued) C.A. Bennett, “Horticulture: The Tree Peddler.” Reprinted from Farmer’s Review, March 31, 1906, p. 6. January 30. 1909, p. 2.
The Weekly New Mexican Arthur Boyle. “Horticultural, President Boyle’s Address to the Fruit Growers of New Mexico.” April 15, 1886, p. 4. “100,000 Fruit Trees, How New Mexico Goes to the Front in Horticulture.” April 15, 1886, p. 4. “From Fort Selden to Santa Fe.” February 20, 1877, p. 1.
Other Newspaper Articles: “Park Avenue Nursery.” The Socorro Chieftain. May 9, 1888, p. 4. The San Juan Times. October 18, 1895, p. 4. “Typhoid Fever––Basswood Trees––A Dyke Greatly Needed.” Albuquerque Weekly Citizen. November 14, 1903, p. 7. “Growing Artificial Forests, Important Circular Issued by the Forest Commissioner.” Rio Grande Republican. March 10, 1888, p. 1. “Lordsburg: Its Resources, Its Prospects, Its Men of Merit.” Western Liberal, Volume IX, No. 5. December 13, 1895, p. 1. “Farm Trees Are ‘Taxpayers’.” Clovis News Journal. February 25, 1943, p. 5. “Merchants Back Beautification of Road Median.” The Española New Mexican. June 29, 1967. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 17, UNM, CSWR. Photograph with caption in Portales News-Tribune. March 29, 1967. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 13, UNM, CSWR. “Students Help Beautify Their School.” Gallup Daily Independent. June 7, 1967. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 13, UNM, CSWR. “Tree Project.” Farmington Daily Times. May 3, 1967. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 13, UNM, CSWR. “From the Publisher.” Torrance County Citizen. September 21, 1967. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949-1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 13, UNM, CSWR. Opinion article in El Independente. August 18, 1967. On file in Eunice Kalloch Papers, 1949- 1980, MSS 384 BC, Box 1, Folder 13, UNM, CSWR.
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