My needle always settles between west and southwest. The future lies that way to me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. —Henry David Thoreau Living in a State of Enchantment We live in the right place. It’s ironic that the very things that make New Mexico I know it when I’m here, but I know it even more marvelous and unique—dramatic climate, sere country, a keenly whenever I fly back to New Mexico after a trip to sharp diversity of peoples—were the very things that so pretty much anywhere else in America. Gazing out the many bewhiskered windbags in Washington found loath- window as the plane begins its long descent, I contemplate some when they were pondering statehood candidates in the endless space, the wrinkled blue mountains, and the the late 1800s. To many back East, this place seemed a SCHALLAU ADAM merciful dearth of human scars on the land. After Dallas, crazy-quilt of weird religions, unintelligible languages, and It’s about time, it’s after Phoenix, after any of those Bubba Gumped, Mattress warring tribes, all set in a forbidding moonscape. Some about space: From Firmed, Olive Gardened, La Quinta-fied rat warrens of politicians vowed that New Mexico should remain a Ter- the futuristic Very Large Array in the modern America, I often find myself literally breathing a ritory forever; others contended that the U.S. should just south to ancient sigh of relief: Home! I remember all over again why I came give it all back to Mexico and be done with the place. Chaco Canyon up here, and why I stay. But New Mexico is rather like cholla cactus: It has north, New Mexico The contradictions of New Mexico never cease to a way of sticking to people. It worked its way into the constantly inspires astound me—and they lie at the root of why I love this national imagination and eventually won over those poli- appreciation of the ineffable. place so much. Who can make sense of it? Here we are, ticians back East. On January 6, 1912, America welcomed one of the youngest states in the Union, constructed her 47th member of the Union. on the ruins of some of North America’s most ancient Yet even with statehood, I’m not sure New Mexico was civilizations. Dry but high, vast in size but puny in popu- ever fully conquered or assimilated, and that’s something lation, we’re a great state that suffers from an inferiority I’ve always loved about this place. It’s still very much its complex. Yet people the world over fantasize about own land, at the crossroads of myriad cultures, where the coming and living here—somehow, some day, some way. desert meets the mountains meet the plains. Living here is We’re an oasis of high culture (Santa Fe Opera), but also probably the closest one can come to an expat experience of high kitsch (Roswell’s UFO Festival—“a great place in the Lower 48. We’re in the United States, but not to crash!”). We’re a place with deep strains of humility entirely of it. (penitents on the road to Chimayó), and also of cosmic So, happy 100th birthday, New Mexico. There is arrogance (nuclear interlopers at Los Alamos). We’re a nowhere else quite like you. You offer a sense of space and state that’s tied to the old ways, for better and worse— possibility stretching to the horizons. And you keep remind- cockfighting was declared illegal only a few years ago. And ing me, whenever I leave you: I live in the right place. yet we’re also poised on the furthest frontiers of futurism Hampton Sides, the author of Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story and technology—home of the Virgin Galactic Spaceport, TINNETT of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West, is featured S Intel, and the Very Large Array. in “Storytellers,” on page 7. KEN By Hampton Sides 26 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012 nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 27 NEW MEXICO STATEHOOD ONE HUNDRED YEARS February 11, 1916: Bandelier National Monument, named after anthropologist 1920: Los Cinco Pintores (The Five N VENTFUL EBUT 1915: Ernest L. Adolph F. A.Bandelier, opens. Evidence of Painters)—Josef Bakos, Will Shuster, Walter A E D human inhabitation as early as 1150 B.C. is Blumenschein (right) Mruk, Willard Nash, and Fremont Ellis— and Bert G. Phillips found in pit houses, cave dwellings carved hold their first exhibit in Santa Fe. 1912–1922 decided to stay in into volcanic tuff, and later, pueblo-like Taos after having their structures in canyons near Los Alamos. wagon wheel repaired MHM/DCA), #040423 N New Mexicans celebrated ( there in 1898. They S MHM/DCA), #023027 the long-awaited news of N ( S went on to form the 1922: The Inter-Tribal statehood with great fanfare Taos Society of Indian Ceremonial begins in on January 6, 1912. Drivers Artists, one of the E GOVERNOR Gallup. The event includes th honked their horns, people E GOVERNOR most influential groups a parade through town, E OF th Native dances, and an art in the history of New AC danced in the streets, and L A E OF Mexican art. P fair. Navajos, Comanches, patriotic parades were held in AC L Kiowas, Apaches, Zunis, and A P communities across the new 1913: The official state seal is adapted from the Taos Puebloans, among state. Nine days later, seven territorial seal, which featured a Mexican brown many other U.S. tribes and thousand New Mexicans cheered when January 6, 1912: eagle with a snake in its mouth, resting on a first nations from other William C. McDonald took the oath of President William cactus plant. In the new seal, an American countries, attended the event Howard Taft signs a then and continue to do so. office as the state’s first governor. eagle spreads its wings and clutches an arrow, proclamation making representing the change in sovereignty from T The 90th annual Ceremonial Filled with enthusiasm, state leaders New Mexico the 47th Mexico to the U.S. The seal bears the Latin REN will be held in August. A promoted New Mexico at the Panama- state in the Union. phrase “Crescit eundo” (It grows as it goes), P E C California Exposition in San Diego—and now the state motto. UREN A won the prize for the best state exhibit. L Silent movies filmed here, with stars like Mary Pickford and Tom Mix, also drew 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 attention to the state. The jubilation suddenly ended in 1916, when the Mexican Revolution 1910s: The Santa 1916: Elephant Butte Dam, the second 1918: New Yorker Mabel Dodge 1920s: With the spilled over the border and Pancho Fe County Assessor Stern leaves Park Avenue for largest irrigation dam in the world, opens popular rise Villa destroyed much of Columbus, records some 200 remote Taos, where she marries creating one of the largest bodies of water of films, small New Mexico. “Black Jack” Pershing and burros on the tax in the state. The lake becomes a destina- Taos Pueblo native Antonio rolls. These creatures theaters arose his Punitive Expedition chased Villa tion for fishing and boating. Other popular Lujan. Thereafter, Mabel are highly valued as Dodge Luhan lures other such as the in Mexico for nearly a year, but never water-recreation areas in the state include tourist attractions, writers and artists, including Shuler in Ratón, caught him. described by the Santa Eagle Nest Lake, Navajo Lake, and the San the KiMo in MHM/DCA), #169615 D. H. Lawrence and Ansel Adams, N ( Juan River; the last provides some of North When the United States entered S Fe New Mexican to join her salons, at which Albuquerque, the Great War in 1917, more than as “the saints of America’s best fly-fishing. she promoted modern art, and the Yam in 15,000 New Mexicans served in the the desert” or the bohemian culture, and Native Portales. All are E GOVERNOR “Rocky Mountain American rights. Taos has drawn still open today. armed forces; 501 men lost their lives. th canaries.” artists and luminaries as diverse Soldiers and civilians alike perished E OF as heiress Millicent Rogers AC L in the terrible Spanish flu epidemic of A (whose museum you can see in 1922: The School of American P 1918. In that same year, New Mexicans Taos today), and actor-director Research and the Museum of celebrated the end of World War I with Dennis Hopper. New Mexico host the Southwest 1920s: As as much fervor as they had celebrated Indian Fair, now Santa Fe Indian tuberculosis Market. Today, the August market statehood less than seven years earlier. becomes the celebrates excellence in Native art —Richard Melzer 1917: The Art Gallery of the Museum of New country’s most and is one of the largest events March 9, 1916: Francisco “Pancho” Villa, 1920: The U.S. census shows 5,733 Mexico (now the New Mexico Museum of fatal disease, in the state, drawing more than along with a contingent of other Mexican African Americans living in the state. Historian Richard Melzer is featured in Art) opens in Santa Fe. Carlos Vierra helped New Mexico’s 100,000 attendees each year. revolutionaries, leads a raid on Columbus, At the time, several hundred African- “Storytellers,” on page 7. Timeline compiled design the Museum, using the 1630 San sanitoriums New Mexico. On March 16, General John American citizens lived in Blackdom, by Ashley M.