Railroad and history buffs are agilely apprehension the aperture of the New Mexico History Museum on May 24 in Santa Fe. Among the abundant actual belief illustrated and told, the building tells the abounding adventure of New Mexico's Railroad Wars. How the West was won. In the old canicule one could aphorism New Mexico by coercion, threats, and bulldozing. That seemed to accomplish until the railroad came.
Santa Fe, NM (Vocus/PRWEB ) May 20, 2009 -- The New Mexico History Museum, aperture on May 24, tells the tales of the Railroad Wars: On a algid and albino morning in February of 1878, two groups of men armed with rifles and shovels glared angrily at one addition above the wind-swept Raton Pass in northeastern New Mexico. W.B. Strong, the new admiral of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, had assassin bounded gunslingers and lawmen to ensure his affirmation to the pass, but so had Gen. W.J. Palmer from the Denver and Rio Grande Railway. Strong and his track-men had baffled Palmer to the canyon by a amount of minutes, yet the two broken-down armies still stood on the border of absolute war. 'We got actuality first, and we're architecture the Canon City & San Juan Railroad through to the Arkansas (River),' Strong shouted. 'Anyone interfering with this plan is accountable to stop a ammo amid the eyes!'
New Mexico's Railroad Wars are but one of abounding tales of ability clashes cat-and-mouse to be told at The New Mexico History Museum, http://www.nmhistorymuseum.org/, aperture May 24, 2009. The building explores how the West's assorted cultures clashed and attenuated over 400 years of accounting and announced memory. Starting with New Mexico's built-in citizenry - the affiliated Pueblos, Navajos and Apaches - the history includes Spanish conquistadors, Santa Fe Trail riders, outlaws, railroad builders, Route 66 sight-seers, artists, nuclear scientists and counter-culture revolutionaries.
An interactive, multimedia facility, the 96,000-square-foot museum, now beneath architecture abaft the Palace of the Governors on the celebrated Santa Fe Plaza, focuses on six time periods key to the development of New Mexico and the American West. "Becoming the Southwest" explores abounding of the adverse contest generally referred to as "How the West was won." From the Civil War through the Lincoln County War and the Railroad Wars, New Mexico was a violent, active abode during its 63 years as a U.S. Territory.
As it angry out, the threatened action for Raton Pass burst quietly. Gen. W.J. Palmer and his men stood down, and the Santa Fe Railway claimed the prize. But just a few months later, the two companies were at it afresh over a attenuated gorge in Colorado. To assure his investment this time, Strong assassin a few ringers: some of the Wild West's belled gunslingers. In animosity of this absorbing line-up, the Rio Grande had added men. After a amount of blood-soaked battles, the Santa Fe conceded the Royal Gorge to the Rio Grande.
After the Railroad Wars, a amount of the Santa Fe's gunslingers confused to Las Vegas, N.M. You've heard how asperous Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone were. Las Vegas, N.M., was the affliction of the worst. A accumulation of desperados including "Mysterious" Dave Mather, "Dirty" Dave Rudabaugh, and J.J. Webb set themselves up as lawmen beneath Justice of the Peace Hoodoo Brown. This group, accepted as the Dodge City Gang, alternate in alternation and stagecoach robberies, organized beasts rustling, and were said to accept been amenable for assorted lynchings and murders. They disqualified Las Vegas for over two years, until the humans of the boondocks assuredly threw them out. As Governor Bradford Prince said, "In the old canicule one could aphorism New Mexico by coercion, threats, and bulldozing. That seemed to accomplish until the railroad came."
What the railroad brought to alter them was an arrival of arts and sciences, New Mexico's new future. Tuberculosis patients headed West, gluttonous "the cure." Physicians came along, establishing clinics and hospitals throughout the state. Artists and photographers were fatigued by the august vistas and bewitched light. Melding their aesthetic visions with those of the Native American and Hispanic artists already here, they delivered images of the Southwest to the blow of the country and aggressive new trajectories a allotment of New Mexico's acceptable artists. With those images and amenities in mind, the aboriginal beachcomber of tourists accustomed on the trains, eventually acceptable a above industry all on their own.
Merchants came. Schools were built. Harvey Houses circumscribed up, accouterment high-end blow stops and tours of Indian Country. The trains alien New Mexico's coal, balk and absolute to added states; added states' humans rode the balustrade to New Mexico. New Mexico was afflicted forever.
With an all-encompassing accumulating of artifacts, bolstered by multimedia installations and absolute belief of miners, cowboys, gunslingers, and railroad bosses, the New Mexico History Museum brings to activity the Territorial aeon of New Mexico's history. Get into it! Discover and bless the history of the accompaniment with the aperture of the New Mexico History Museum this Memorial Day weekend.
New Mexico History Museum
at 113 Lincoln Avenue, just abaft the Palace of the Governors on the Santa Fe Plaza
Media Contacts:
Kate Nelson
New Mexico History Museum
505 476 1141
www.nmhistorymuseum.org
Rachel Mason
Ballantines PR
505 216 0889
www.ballantinespr.com
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