Fascinating Facts of New Mexico:
Aliens, Artists, Atoms, and More

Marty Gerber

Paperback:
Perfect bound, 116 pages , 5." x 8." 
ISBN 978-1-938288-71-5
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Ebook coming soon

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About the Book

The who, what, when, where, and how of New Mexico are brought together into an easy-to-read compilation of well-known and unknown information that may sometimes be beyond belief—but always is absolutely true! This story of this colorful and historic state—organized for easy use in home, office, or school—is told through hundreds of questions and answers about its fascinating land and people. It’s a book guaranteed to educate and entertain as it conveys the complex and intriguing story of New Mexico’s people, places, and culture, from ancient times to the movies and TV shows being made there today.

Preview

1. Why does New Mexico have two state songs?

One is the official English-language song, “O, Fair New Mexico,” and the other is the official Spanish-language song, “Asi Es Nuevo Mejico.” (There is also an official state ballad, “Land of Enchantment―New Mexico”).

2. What New Mexico town has the country’s only Merchant Marine cemetery?

Fort Stanton, fifteen miles northeast of Ruidoso. Though it was built to help the Army battle Mescalero Apaches in the mid-1850s, and changed hands twice during the Civil War, the military base there was acquired by the U.S. Public Health Service in 1899 as a tuberculosis hospital for members of the Merchant Marine, since fresh air and sunshine were the only known “cures” then. Some fifteen hundred patients are buried nearby.

3. What church has built a major facility, including underground tunnels, near the isolated little town of Trementina?

The Scientologist-owned Church of Spiritual Technology, which says the purpose of its Trementina Base is to preserve the writings, films, and recordings of founder L. Ron Hubbard for future generations. The texts have been engraved on stainless steel tablets, encased in titanium capsules, and stored deep in a mountainside. Enormous Scientology symbols, visible only from the air, are reportedly intended to guide future Scientologists to the site when they travel here from elsewhere in the universe.

4. Who were the “Harvey girls”?

Young women, mostly from the East, who were hired by Fred Harvey to work in his Harvey House restaurants along the route of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway in New Mexico and elsewhere in the west.

5. Where in New Mexico is the country’s oldest church?

It’s San Miguel Mission, in Santa Fe. Ground was broken for the chapel in 1610, the year New Mexico’s second governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, established La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi.

6. Where did native people in New Mexico create the state’s largest art gallery?

Just a few miles northwest of Albuquerque, where nearly twenty thousand pictures were carved over the centuries into a seventeen-mile basalt escarpment that is now Petroglyph National Monument.

About the Author

Marty Gerber has an addiction to New Mexico. His misguided efforts to relocate elsewhere after first moving here in 1979 have always failed.

There was the “detox” he threw himself into north of Seattle, a “rehab” a few years later in California—but always a relapse. Finally, the truth had to be faced: He was hopelessly hooked on that land and sky reaching into forever; the creative energy giving writer, musician, visual artist a shared common language; even the saturation of its cliches like the cultures, the light, the chile.

And the fact that most of his New Mexico years were spent in the newspaper business in Albuquerque and Santa Fe certainly didn’t help. Instead, they created an even deeper immersion, time in which both work and play kept him digging deeper and learning more about the fascinating state he’d adopted. He’s driven its miles, walked its trails, seen its sights, read its histories, visited its museums, eaten and imbibed in big cities, small towns, and much that’s in between. He feels blessed that his family shares his love for the state and (mostly) makes a home here as well.

He is also the editor of Terra Nova Books.