Santa Fe Secrets

By Lynn Michelsohn

What inflammatory word did a stranger chisel off Santa Fe's Soldiers Monument?
Who haunts the city's best known hotel?
How did Santa Fe disappear from Route 66?
What creatures lurk in tunnels beneath Santa Fe?
Find a different view of New Mexico's capital in this unique, lighthearted guide to Santa Fe's less-well-known attractions!

Discover . . .
A Top Secret Portal and an Underground City . . . A Wailing Ghost Who Haunts an On-again Off-again River . . . A Beheading on the Plaza and a Kidnapped Madonna . . .Two Wells for Padre Gallegos and Two Jails for Billy the Kid . . .A Legend-Worthy Bell, Four Hebrew Letters, and a Mysterious Chiseler . . . and Why Santa Fe's Newspaper Editor once wrote, "'Dobe or Not 'Dobe? That is the Question."

Enjoy exploring the Intriguing Oddities, Distinctive Quirks, and Special Places that make Santa Fe The City Different!

Selections from Santa Fe Secrets . . .

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH A PREGNANT SOLDIER?

In the midst of World War II, the U.S. government sought a secret location for its efforts to build an atomic bomb. Project Manager Robert Oppenheimer selected Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the Jemez Mountains thirty miles west of Santa Fe as the perfect secret "middle of nowhere" spot.

But not secret enough for the United States government!

Those recruited to work on the project--from top scientists to dishwashers--were unaware of their final destination. They only received orders to report to a room at the back of Santa Fe's Trujillo Plaza on Palace Avenue. From here, they disappeared through a "secret portal" to Los Alamos--the back alley.

Thousands of men, women, and children spent the war years as near-prisoners in that top-secret mountaintop military facility, lying to friends and family about where they were and what they were doing, even using aliases on rare trips to town.

While Oppenheimer spread false rumors that the secret project was developing electric rockets, locals became convinced the isolated location was a hush-hush home for members of the Women's Army Corps who found themselves single and pregnant.

ANY BODY HERE?

Early Masons, along with the Odd Fellows fraternal organization, opened Santa Fe's first cemetery for non-Roman Catholics in 1853 on the site of today's Scottish Rite Cathedral.

The cemetery closed in 1895. Officials had its graves carefully moved to other later-opened cemeteries--or so they claimed. However, skeletons still turn up here occasionally, as they do in much of Santa Fe!

Tread lightly. Past centuries don't always stay buried in The City Different!

DISCOVER MORE of Santa Fe's intriguing "skeletons" in SANTA FE SECRETS!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynn Michelsohn
• Release date: Jan 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463788127

Lynn Michelsohn

Travel, history, and folklore often come together in Lynn Michelsohn's books. Ghost stories associated with particular historical locations especially interest her, as do fascinating characters and quirky facts about places she loves--the South Carolina Lowcountry, the American Southwest, and the Galapagos Islands. A Message from the Author: I write for three reasons. First of all, it's fun. Secondly, it keeps my brain alive and functioning as I learn new things. Finally, and probably most importantly, it keeps me out of my sons' hair (I just know I could run their lives, if only they would let me!). Several years ago, I closed my long-time New Mexico practice in clinical and forensic psychology to devote more time to writing--and beachcombing. My husband, a former attorney, and I now divide our time between Santa Fe and Hutchinson Island, Florida, where our two adult sons visit us regularly (but not often enough). Wow! This writing (and beachcombing) is really great! I recommend it to all of you who have ever thought about starting that memoir or article or novel. Kindle makes publishing incredibly easy, and who knows, you might even sell a few hundred thousand copies (I haven't yet)! After years of living in Roswell with its sometimes offbeat attractions and history--the Roswell Incident, for example--writing "Roswell, Your Travel Guide to the UFO Capital of the World!" gave me the chance to share these interests with visitors to the Land of Enchantment. Next I wrote a book about a distinctly different region, one I have loved since my childhood spent knee-deep in the marshes and saltwater creeks of the South Carolina coast. "Tales from Brookgreen: Folklore, Ghost Stories, and Gullah Folktales in the South Carolina Lowcountry" recounts stories from Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina's popular tourist attraction near Myrtle Beach. I am happy to see that the three shorter collections of tales from this longer work are quite popular on Kindle: "Lowcountry Ghosts," "Gullah Ghosts," and "Crab Boy's Ghost." Recently I released two new short collections, "Lowcountry Hurricanes" and "Lowcountry Confederates" in a new series called "More Tales from Brookgreen." I hope to add more lowcountry ghost stories and folktales to the series soon. Did you know that Herman Melville, of "Moby-Dick" fame, wrote a series of articles describing the Galapagos Islands? Neither did I until recently. I've had fun putting Melville's articles together with wonderful photographs taken by my son Moses in the Galapagos Islands, and writing introductory material to create a book for the modern visitor to the place Melville referred to as "The Encantadas." We call the book "In the Galapagos Islands with Herman Melville" and hope this glimpse into the "Enchanted Isles," written over 150 years ago, will enrich the visits of today's travelers. I've also put two shorter ebooks from it on Kindle that feature even more of Moses' great photos: "Galapagos Islands Birds" and "Galapagos Islands Landscapes." Recently I've gotten interested in researching the famous New Mexico outlaw Billy the Kid, especially the time he spent in Santa Fe. Did you know that more movies have been made about him over the years than about ANY OTHER individual? I have already completed one short book, "Billy the Kid's Jail," and one longer book, "Billy the Kid in Santa Fe, Book One: Young Billy." It is the first in a non-fiction trilogy exploring Santa Fe of the 1870s and 1880s and the time Billy spent there. I'm currently working on "Book Two: Outlaw Billy," describing his stay in the Santa Fe jail during the winter of 1880-1881. It's hard to avoid detouring into writing more about Santa Fe itself as I often get lost in reading local newspapers from that era. So many fascinating details!

Book preview

Santa Fe

Secrets

A Different View

of

The City Different

Lynn Michelsohn

Cleanan Press

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Copyright 2020 by Lynn Michelsohn

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. Around the Plaza, Mostly

Chapter 2. North of the Plaza

Chapter 3. East of the Plaza

Chapter 4. South of the Plaza

Chapter 5. West of the Plaza

Chapter 6. Around Town

Santa Fe Timeline

Acknowledgements, Author, Other Books, Copyright

Introduction ~ The City Different

Santa Fe celebrates the individual.

- Tony Hillerman, New Mexican author

Santa Fe Secrets highlights intriguing oddities, quirks, and special places that make the country’s oldest and highest capital unique—an individual city to celebrate!

For over 400 years, Santa Fe has pursued its own distinctive journey. But not all the features resulting from this remarkable trek find their way into its usual guidebooks.

Santa Fe Secrets delights in revealing some of Santa Fe’s more curious features—ones that make ours The City Different.

Enjoy!

Lynn Michelsohn

Santa Fe, 2020

Early Trails to Santa Fe

Why is Santa Fe called Santa Fe?

Spanish colonists named their settlement "La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís meaning The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi." Over time, usage has shortened the name to Santa Fe.

Why is Santa Fe called The City Different?

Santa Fe began promoting itself with this nickname about 1912 as a part of its campaign to attract tourists. Visitors still find the city unlike any other in the United States—its architecture, its culture, its people, even its sunsets.

Discover A Few of Santa Fe’s Secrets . . .

- The word missing from the Soldiers’ Monument in the center of the Plaza.

- A geography lesson from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

- An ancient cottonwood that disappeared from Sena Plaza.

- Secret tunnels, secret underground cities,

and a Top Secret portal.

- A brick house that isn’t a brick house.

- Lingering ghostly inhabitants.

- The three-towered castle and raging lion on city garbage cans.

- Billy the Kid’s days in Santa Fe.

- The best answer to the Official State Question.

- A Padre, an Archbishop, and a well in the floor of a restaurant.

- Spanish Conquistadors who patrol the city.

- Why the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad never came to Santa Fe.

And many more . . .

Chapter 1. Around the Plaza, Mostly

A Couple of Little Errors . . .

The DAR Monument on the Plaza

The famous Santa Fe Trail began in Missouri and ended here, on this southeast corner of Santa Fe’s Plaza.

The Daughters of the American Revolution, a lineage-based organization best known for promoting patriotism among schoolchildren, erected this granite monument in 1911 to mark the endpoint of the Santa Fe Trail.

It has stood on the Plaza ever since 1911, confusing careful observers for more than 100 years now.

Confusing? How?

The monument correctly depicts part of the western portion of the Santa Fe Trail, including where the two branches that split in Kansas rejoin each other in northeastern New Mexico.

So far, so good for the DAR.

But upon closer inspection, two errors appear. The more glaring one isn’t the wrong date listed for the ending of the Trail—1879, rather than the correct date of 1880—but the geography the monument shows.

New Mexico makes up one-fourth of the famous Four Corners Area—the only place in the United States where four states come together. Arizona, Colorado, and Utah all meet at the northwest corner of New Mexico to form this unique spot.

Not according to the Daughters of the American Revolution! This monument shows Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma meeting with the northeast corner of New Mexico to form the famous junction.

Maybe focus a little less on patriotism and a little more on geography . . .

More about the Santa Fe Trail . . .

Here Come the Americans!

Life here changed drastically in 1821 when Santa Fe became part of the new