New Deal is focus of New Mexico
Preservation Month

By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Cibola County has recently expressed concerns about the question of history and cultural preservation and the future of Mount Taylor access. The New Mexico Historic Preservation Division has assured the county that access to the mountain will not be limited for ordinary use like hunting, hiking, fuel wood gathering and so forth and encourages all New Mexicans to join in celebrating our history and culture not only in the area but throughout the state.

The month of May is Heritage Preservation Month for New Mexico, with state-wide events planned to observe our historic areas and structures.
The theme for the preservation month is The New Deal, created to put people back to work during the Depression and creating classic buildings and lasting engineering projects for the entire country.

Since 2008 is the 75th Anniversary of the New Deal’s Construction of Conchas Dam near Tucumcari, the historic division chose the dam as the logo for Preservation Month material. The dam was constructed by New Deal workers, the Civilian Conservation Corps, between 1935 and 1939 and remains as a landmark near Tucumcari on the Canadian River.

The annual poster for this year features Conchas Dam.
“Our office formed a partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the New Mexico Heritage Preservation Alliance that made this year’s poster possible,” said Katherine Slick, HPD director and New Mexico’s State Historic Preservation Officer. “This poster, our twenty-first annual poster, dramatically shows what is considered the quintessential New Deal project in New Mexico.”

Tom Drake, public relations officer of HPD said in a press release, “Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the New Deal in New Mexico is that it built infrastructure where none existed before. Not only grand projects like Conchas Dam, but for many communities their first libraries, schools, courthouses, paved sidewalks and post offices came about because the New Deal so aptly funneled federal money to the state level.”

In addition to declaring Historic Preservation Month, the division will hold community events in honor of the month. Approximately half of the events will honor New Deal projects across the state. Drake said the events range from exhibits of New Deal art in many of the state’s MainStreet communities, to photo exhibits of New Deal projects such as one at Lordsburg City Hall. He added that Conchas Dam and former National Park Service headquarters in Santa Fe, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and believed to be the largest adobe office building in the nation, both have planned major celebrations. HPD suggests that New Mexicans look for events commemorating New Deal trails at Bandelier National Monument and near Magdalena, a full-day celebration at Amistad’s New Deal gymnasium and at Hyde Park in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains above Santa Fe among other historic events.

For a list of events, check the New Mexico Historic Preservation Web site, http://www.nmhistoricpreservation.org/. Free copies of the poster and the calendar are available by calling HPD, 505-827-6320.

On the web: Conchas http://www.conchasdam.com/, http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/html/tucumcari.html
New Deal — http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/4/98.04.04.x.html#d
New Mexico preservaton: http://www.nmhistoricpreservation.org/newdeal75.php?page=resources, http://www.nmhistoricpreservation.org/