70 Fun Facts About New Mexico

What are the strings of chile pods hung up to dry on New Mexico porches and fences called?

Ristras. Most are hung simply to dry the chile for later cooking, but they double as decoration and are said to bring good health and good luck.

Which president signed New Mexico into the Union as the 47th state?

Taft. He signed New Mexico's statehood on January 6, 1912, ending six decades as a territory, and the lower 48 were complete the next month, when the state next door joined too.

New Mexico's official state question is what?

The legislature adopted it in 1996 to honor the chile industry; ordering both colors is called 'Christmas'.

Which bird is New Mexico's official state bird?

Greater roadrunner. Adopted in 1949, this ground-dwelling cuckoo can fly but would rather run, chasing down lizards and other prey on foot.

Which TV drama was set and filmed in Albuquerque?

Breaking Bad. The pilot script was set in Riverside, California; Sony moved the shoot for the state's production rebate, and Vince Gilligan rewrote the setting rather than hide the mountains east of town.

Which New Mexico town became a UFO byword after debris was found nearby in 1947?

Roswell. The local air base announced that it had recovered a 'flying disc', then took it back within a day and called the wreckage a weather balloon.

What is New Mexico's official state nickname?

The Land of Enchantment began as the title of Lilian Whiting's 1906 book and was stamped on New Mexico license plates from 1941, decades before lawmakers made it the official nickname.

Albuquerque's famous October festival fills the sky with what?

Hot air balloons. The Balloon Fiesta began in 1972 as a radio station's birthday party, with 13 balloons in a shopping-mall parking lot, and now launches more than 500.

The Big Room, a vast limestone chamber, lies in the caverns named for which New Mexico city?

Carlsbad. The caverns were dissolved by sulfuric acid, which formed when hydrogen sulfide rising from below met oxygen in the groundwater.

The dunes of White Sands National Park are made of which mineral?

Gypsum. Rain dissolves it out of the nearby mountains, but the Tularosa Basin has no outlet to the sea, so the mineral stays behind as the world's largest dunefield of its kind.

Which Native people's sun symbol sits at the center of New Mexico's state flag?

Zia. Physician Harry Mera took the sun from a 19th-century Zia Pueblo water jar for a 1920s flag contest, and his wife Reba sewed the winning design.

Which cartoon rabbit keeps taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque?

Bugs Bunny first made the excuse in the 1945 short Herr Meets Hare, after tunneling toward Las Vegas and surfacing in Germany's Black Forest.

At the Four Corners, New Mexico touches Colorado, Utah and which other state?

Arizona. Four Corners is the only spot where four states meet, and though surveyors found its marker about 1,800 feet from the intended point, the marker itself is the legal corner.

Which historic highway follows Central Avenue through the heart of Albuquerque?

Route 66 first crossed Albuquerque north to south on Fourth Street; a 1937 realignment moved it onto Central Avenue, so the old and new routes cross downtown.

Which laboratory town was built for the Manhattan Project?

Los Alamos was so secret that the whole town shared one mailing address, P.O. Box 1663 in Santa Fe, which even went on the birth certificates of babies born there during the war.

What was the code name of the world's first nuclear test, set off in the New Mexico desert in 1945?

Trinity. The blast fused the desert sand into a green, mildly radioactive glass that was named trinitite.

Which cookie is New Mexico's official state cookie, the first in the nation?

Biscochito. Lawmakers chose the anise-flavored cookie, brought by early Spanish settlers, to help keep traditional home baking alive.

Which flower is New Mexico's official state flower?

Yucca. Schoolchildren chose it in a statewide survey before lawmakers adopted it in 1927; settlers once crushed its roots into a substitute for soap.

Which tree is the official state tree of New Mexico?

Piñon pine. Its nuts have been gathered for centuries, and piñon jays help plant new trees by burying stores of the seeds.

Along with chile, which food is one of New Mexico's two official state vegetables?

Frijoles, or pinto beans, were adopted together with chile in 1965 after lawmakers argued that the two were inseparable.

Which historic trade route carried wagon freight from Missouri to New Mexico between 1821 and 1880?

Santa Fe Trail. William Becknell opened it in 1821, when newly independent Mexico welcomed the American trade that Spain had turned away; the railroad ended it in 1880.

Hot Springs, New Mexico, renamed itself in 1950 after which radio quiz show?

Truth or Consequences. Host Ralph Edwards promised to air the show's 10th-anniversary broadcast from the first town to take its name, and Hot Springs voted to do it.

Which fictional Simpsons team gave Albuquerque's minor-league baseball club its name?

Isotopes. In a 2001 episode Homer goes on hunger strike to stop the Springfield Isotopes moving to Albuquerque; two years later a real team arrived from Calgary and took the name.

Which painter, called the Mother of American modernism, lived at Ghost Ranch and Abiquiú?

Georgia O'Keeffe made New Mexico her permanent home in 1949 and explored its back country alone in a Ford Model A she had bought and learned to drive in 1929.

Which uprising in 1680 drove the Spanish out of New Mexico for twelve years?

Pueblo Revolt. Leader Po'pay is said to have sent runners to each village with knotted cords, one knot to be untied each day until it was time to rise.

Which billionaire founder was born in Albuquerque in 1964?

Jeff Bezos was born Jeffrey Jorgensen to a teenage mother in Albuquerque, and took his surname at four when his Cuban-born stepfather, Mike Bezos, adopted him.

Which 1970s country-folk star was born in New Mexico, the son of an Army Air Forces pilot?

John Denver was born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. while his father, an Army Air Forces pilot, was stationed in New Mexico; decades later, Colorado and West Virginia each made one of his songs a state song.

Which Albuquerque-born actor grew up in Ruidoso and starred in How I Met Your Mother?

Neil Patrick Harris finished Albuquerque's La Cueva High School with high honors in 1991 while starring as TV's teenage doctor Doogie Howser, tutored on set for half of each school year.

What is the popular nickname of New Mexico's state capitol building, dedicated in 1966?

The Roundhouse. Seen from above, the round building and its four entrance wings form the sun symbol from the state flag.

Which village calls itself the Chile Capital of the World?

Hatch. Its chile festival began in 1971 as a small gathering of local farmers and now draws more than 30,000 visitors to the village each Labor Day weekend.

Which pueblo in northern New Mexico is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has been lived in for centuries?

Taos Pueblo. Its sacred Blue Lake was taken for a national forest in 1906, and the pueblo fought until 1970, when President Nixon signed the law returning it.

Which radio telescope on the Plains of San Agustin uses 27 dishes in a Y shape?

Very Large Array. Each 230-ton dish rides on railroad tracks, so astronomers can spread the array wide for sharper detail or pull it close together.

What does New Mexico's Latin state motto 'Crescit eundo' mean?

It grows as it goes. The words come from the Roman poet Lucretius, who was describing a thunderbolt gathering force as it crosses the sky.

In which New Mexico town did Sheriff Pat Garrett shoot Billy the Kid dead in 1881?

Fort Sumner. Billy the Kid is buried in the old fort cemetery there, and Garrett's daughter Elizabeth went on to compose the state song, 'O Fair New Mexico'.

The living Smokey Bear was a cub rescued from a 1950 wildfire near which New Mexico town?

Capitan. The cub spent 26 years at the National Zoo, drawing so much fan mail that he got his own ZIP code, and was returned to Capitan for burial in 1976.

Which launch site sent up Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity on its 2021 spaceflights?

Spaceport America. In July 2021 Unity carried Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson to the edge of space from there, nine days before a rival billionaire rode his own rocket.

Which Santa Fe art collective opened House of Eternal Return in a former bowling alley?

Meow Wolf. Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin pledged $2.7 million in 2015 to renovate and lease the vacant bowling alley that became its permanent home.

Which chimpanzee, launched into space in 1961, was named for a lab at Holloman Air Force Base?

Ham was known only as No. 65 until he came back safely, reportedly because officials feared the headlines if a named chimp died; his name spells out Holloman Aerospace Medical Center.

Which giant marionette, nicknamed Old Man Gloom, is burned in Santa Fe every year?

Zozobra. Artist Will Shuster burned the first one, a six-foot effigy, at a backyard party in 1924; today's marionette stands about 50 feet tall.

Which aerial tramway has climbed from the northeast edge of Albuquerque to a mountain crest since 1966?

Sandia Peak Tramway. Co-founder Robert Nordhaus got the idea from trams he saw on a ski trip to Switzerland, and a Swiss firm built it with more than 5,000 helicopter trips.

Which Navajo landmark in San Juan County is the eroded neck of an ancient volcano?

Shiprock. Its Navajo name means 'the winged rock', after the legend of a great bird that carried the people here, while settlers thought the peak looked like a sailing ship.

Which Santa Fe church is famous for a helix staircase built without a central pole?

Loretto Chapel. Its Miraculous Stair makes two full turns up to the choir loft; the Sisters of Loretto said a stranger built it after their nine days of prayer to Saint Joseph, and credited the saint himself.

Fabián García, called the father of New Mexico's chile industry, bred his peppers at which school?

New Mexico State University. There García bred New Mexico No. 9, the pepper that became the ancestor of the New Mexican-type chiles grown today.

Which fried pastry, served with honey, is a signature of New Mexican cooking?

Sopaipilla. In New Mexico the puffed pastry comes with the meal alongside honey, and a larger version is stuffed and served as a main course.

Which nickname does Albuquerque take from the Spanish nobleman it was named for in 1706?

Duke City. Founder Francisco Cuervo y Valdés named the town for the Duke of Alburquerque, then viceroy of New Spain, and the first 'r' later dropped out of the spelling.

Which 1853-54 land deal added New Mexico's southwestern bootheel to the US?

Gadsden Purchase. The US paid Mexico $10 million for the strip because it offered the route for a southern transcontinental railroad.

Which secret military balloon program produced the 1947 debris behind New Mexico's most famous UFO story?

Project Mogul. It was a top-secret Army Air Forces effort that flew microphones on high-altitude balloons to pick up the sound waves from Soviet atomic bomb tests.

Which insect did New Mexico schoolchildren get adopted as the state insect in 1989?

Tarantula hawk wasp. An elementary class in Edgewood proposed a state insect, students statewide voted, and the winner paralyzes tarantulas as live food for its young.

Which dinosaur, found by the hundreds at Ghost Ranch, is New Mexico's state fossil?

Coelophysis. In 1998 one of its skulls rode the Space Shuttle Endeavour to the space station Mir, making it the second dinosaur in space.

Which lizard, New Mexico's official state reptile, is an all-female species that reproduces without males?

Whiptail. The New Mexico whiptail arose as a hybrid of two other whiptail species, and every one is a female whose eggs develop without being fertilized.

Which physicist suggested the ranch-school mesa for the bomb lab and became its first director?

He had spent much of his youth in New Mexico and owned a ranch nearby; General Groves saw the mesa and said, in effect, 'This is the place.'

Which block-long adobe building on Santa Fe's plaza, by tradition begun in 1610, is now a history museum?

Palace of the Governors. It housed Spanish, Mexican and American rule for nearly three centuries, and a state historian's research suggests building began about 1618, not 1610.

Which two Native languages spoken in New Mexico are isolates with no relatives elsewhere?

Keres and Zuni. Pueblo peoples share farming and religious practices, yet Zuni has no known relatives and Keres is an isolate or a tiny family of its own, unlike their Kiowa-Tanoan neighbors.

Which wilderness in New Mexico became the world's first designated wilderness area in 1924?

Gila. Forester Aldo Leopold urged the Forest Service to protect the river's headwaters simply by keeping out roads and denying use permits, and in 1924 it agreed.

Which ancestral Pueblo center, thriving from about 850 to 1250, holds the great house called Pueblo Bonito?

Chaco Canyon. It was a regional center for the ancestral Pueblo people for about four centuries, and many of its buildings appear to be aligned with the cycles of the sun and moon.

Which frontiersman led the 1860s campaign that forced the Navajo on the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo?

Kit Carson. Acting for General James Carleton, he forced the Navajo to Bosque Redondo, where they were held until an 1868 treaty let them return home.

New Mexico's official state necklace, adopted in 2011, is named after the blossom of which plant?

Squash. The squash blossom necklace pairs flower-like silver beads with a crescent pendant that Navajo smiths borrowed from an ornament on Spanish horse bridles.

Which national monument's oldest legible inscription was left by Juan de Oñate in 1605?

El Morro. A reliable waterhole at the foot of its sandstone bluff made it a campsite for centuries, and travelers left more than 2,000 signatures, messages and petroglyphs.

Which piece of Western neckwear did New Mexico make an official state symbol in 2007?

Bolo tie. It took lawmakers two tries: a non-binding measure in 1987 named it the state's official neckwear, and a 2007 law finally made it the official state tie.

The small Mexican eagle on New Mexico's state seal grips a cactus and holds which animal in its beak?

Snake. The scene comes from the Aztec legend on Mexico's own emblem, and a larger American eagle spreads its wings over it to mark the territory's change of rule in 1846.

Which river runs north to south through the middle of New Mexico?

Rio Grande. It rises in Colorado's San Juan Mountains, but drought and heavy irrigation mean it frequently runs dry around Las Cruces.

Which star of Disney's Camp Rock was born in Albuquerque?

Demi Lovato was born in Albuquerque but raised in Dallas, and started out as a child on Barney & Friends, the show that also launched Selena Gomez.

Which Laguna Pueblo member and New Mexico congresswoman became the first Native American cabinet secretary in 2021?

Deb Haaland took over the Interior Department, the agency that long ran the federal boarding schools for Native children, and within months ordered an investigation into their legacy.

Which Republican governor of New Mexico was the first Hispanic woman to govern a US state?

Susana Martinez, a district attorney for 14 years, beat Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish in 2010, a contest between two women that gave New Mexico its first female governor.

Which hotel magnate, born in San Antonio, New Mexico, served in the state's first legislature?

Conrad Hilton sat as a Republican in the first state legislature, grew disillusioned with the 'inside deals' of politics, and in 1919 bought his first hotel, the Mobley in Cisco, Texas.

Which Albuquerque-set series follows small-time lawyer Jimmy McGill?

Better Call Saul. Its black-and-white flash-forwards show Jimmy hiding out as Gene Takavic, the manager of a Cinnabon in Omaha.

What are the University of New Mexico's sports teams called?

Lobos. A student newspaper editor proposed the Spanish word for wolf in 1920, and a live wolf pup attended football games until it bit a child who teased it.

Which tech giant was founded in Albuquerque, where the maker of the Altair computer was based?

Microsoft. Bill Gates and Paul Allen set up shop there in 1975 to write software for the Altair, then left for the Seattle area in 1979 because programmers were hard to recruit.

Which summit in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is New Mexico's highest point, at over 13,160 feet?

Wheeler Peak. Its neighbor Mount Walter, at 13,141 feet, lies along the standard route and is sometimes mistaken for the true summit.

Which conquistador marched north through New Mexico in 1540 in search of the Seven Cities of Gold?

Coronado. A friar sent north in 1539 came back describing a city of vast wealth, so Coronado led an army after it and spent two years finding no gold.