December 2011
A Journey Across New Mexico
by Craig Springer
With the statehood centennial at our door step, it's easy to be reflective about the past 100 years, and beyond. The state of New Mexico will hit the century mark in January. New Mexico from Abiquiu to Zuzax is steeped in history and lore where a lot of "firsts" transpired. This Land of Enchantment is thusly so for the odd and the ancient are peculiarly set side-by-side with the contemporary and the modern.
Ancient petroglyphs stand in silent tribute to a culture long-past in the rocky hills above Spaceport America where wealthy and daring souls will purposely be lobbed into gravity-free space. The Atomic Age was birthed in the Jemez Mountains, the world's first A-bomb taken full-term in the New Mexico desert within sight of Spanish Entradas that probed the edges of what had been undocumented territory 400 years ago.
All of these things, some significant in world history, and others significant only to families long gone from the land, they all leave an impress on us if anywhere but a map—a place name. What better way to have a look back than to look at what's on the map now. The things we call places—our streams, our ridgelines and mountain saddles, the towns and county names—they all have meaning more than letters stamped on a sign. The things we call places are our biography. In the collective they tell a story of place.
One way that New Mexico is unique, is that it carries the stamp of multiple cultures, from original Pueblo peoples, and then cultures that came later, Hispanic and Anglo. You will find place names of all three cultures on a New Mexico map that speak about chance encounters, tributes to important people, maybe even a hybridization of languages.
Taos and Taos Pueblo, nestled in the valley below the towering Sangre de Cristo Mountains is today a favorite skiing and holiday shopping destination. Taos was a place of commerce for Pueblo and Plains Indians, and later the Anglo-American trapper-traders intermingled with Hispaños. The word is a close Spanish reckoning of a native Tiwa expression, a language probably as old as time, of Tua-tah meaning "of this community."
The old and the new meet in the word Gila. It's widely used in southern New Mexico: Gila National Forest, the town of Gila, the Gila River pours on toward the Sea of Cortez, exiting the state near Virden. It too is a close Spanish approximation of a Native language. Apache people called the Gila region home for a few centuries, until 1886 when the last holdouts were concentrated on reservations in Arizona or New Mexico, or imprisoned in Alabama and Florida. But no doubt, conquistores and Apaches crossed paths. And that encounter was chronicled in circa 1634 writings of Fray Alfonso Benavides, where he may have been the first to refer to the region, Apache de Xila. The word is likely a Spanish corruption of an Apache word for "mountain," dzil.
The word Geronimo is more than a New Mexico place name. It's infused in the American lexicon. The Apache man named Goyakla, or One Who Yawns, was nicknamed Geronimo by Mexican military when he escaped injury in gun fire, the Mexican soldiers evoking the name of St. Jerome for the Apache's remarkable luck in cheating death. Before all that, Geronimo left his mark through experiences with the U.S. Army soldiers, territorial militia, lonely ranch outposts, and perhaps even a bit of unsubstantiated lore.
New Mexico has many "presidential" ties. Five of its 33 counties are named after American presidents. McKinley and Lincoln were both assassinated in office and thusly memorialized in county names. The famous town of Lincoln is synonymous with Billy the Kid. Teddy Roosevelt is memorialized in the eastern part of the state, and probably fittingly so. After all, when he needed men who could ride and shoot, he came West to find his Rough Riders, and a good many of them from New Mexico signed on for the Spanish American War. President Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican, led the nation in post-Civil War reconstruction, but the southwestern county was named for him the year before he was elected to office while he was still General U.S. Grant, by a Territorial Legislature dominated by Republicans.
The New Mexico state legislature created Harding County the year the president started office, 1921. But the story behind the tribute may run a little deeper. Harding's secretary of the interior, probably the second-most coveted cabinet office next to secretary of state went to the consummate New Mexican politico, Albert Bacon Fall. Fall was one of the first two U.S. senators to represent the newly minted state. Tom Catron, for who Catron County is named, was the other. Had Fall made better decisions, he may have been memorialized in place name, but instead is forever linked to the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal.
This Land of Enchantment is just that for its colors that attracted creative minds years ago to out-of-the-way places. There's the town of Red River in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; Rito Azul (Blue Creek), a tiny silver rill pours downhill in the Pecos Wilderness. The "noisy" Rio Ruidoso tumbles through the town of the same name as onlookers look to the towering Sierra Blanca (White Mountain).
The origins of some place names are probably unknown. Pep is one such place, a mere crossroads at present, some locals say it took the name from a popular Depression-era cereal, while others believe that it was borrowed from a nearby Texas town of the same name. Hillsboro was probably named by Civil War veteran and early miner Joseph Trimble Yankie for his natal Hillsboro, Ohio. Then there's Des Moines settled by folks from Iowa. Miami was so-named by settlers from Miami County, Ohio, which was named for a Midwest Indian tribe.
The things we call places, tell a story about ourselves, how, when, and why places were settled, or about events that impressed someone to ascribe a word to a place. Thousands of place names exist in New Mexico and they all have some story associated with them. To learn more, check out the books "The Place Names of New Mexico," by Robert Julyan, or "New Mexico Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary," by T.M. Pearce, or visit online and search for geonames.usgs.gov.
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