Santa Fe’s history is deeper, older, more complicated, more heroic, more tragic, more fascinating than any other in the United States.
I come to this conclusion honestly. It’s based on my own love of and appreciation for history, in general, and on my deep dive into Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico, in particular.
I grew up in a family where history was a powerful and pervasive presence—not just a subject in school, but more, a curriculum for life. My dad, Joe, had grown up in Kansas City, Missouri, and gone off to the University of Missouri at the tender age of 16, determined to become a history professor. When his dad died very young, my dad had to leave the university and get a job to take care of his mom and his younger sisters, who were still at home. World War II came and he enlisted in the Army, and when he came back after the war, he had a wife and kids to take care of. He took a job selling cameras to make a living. But he kept buying history books to make the life he had always aspired to. History was my constant companion.
History books filled shelves in every room of the house, including metal shelving put up in the basement to keep up with the constantly growing history book collection: The Civil War, World War II, the complete record of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, every edition of American Heritage and Horizon magazines, all were part of his collection, along with Churchill’s six-volume history of the Second World War, and the collected writings of Abraham Lincoln.
He never got to teach history as a professor. But before he died, he did become the volunteer head of the Missouri State Historical Society, which brought his time as a student at Mizzou full circle.
The point of this is not only my own appreciation for history. It’s to call attention to a new historical display that opened Friday night at El Zaguan on Canyon Road. I stopped by the crowded gathering and came away with my sense of wonder and amazement at Santa Fe’s history not only renewed but also deepened and magnified.
The exhibit is more accurately and completely called “Santa Fe Origins & Ancient Travelers: An Interactive Handmade Discovery-Book from the Santa Fe Book Arts Group, BAG.” Organized and produced by Sally Blakemore and Barb Macks, it is filled with art, with creativity, with imagination, with wonder. It is not to be missed.
Among the questions it addresses in its “pop-up book” style are these: Who traveled to Santa Fe? Why and when did they travel to New Mexico? What did everyone contribute? How diverse is Santa Fe’s history? How do travelers enrich the places they visit?
The creators imagine the history as “a buffet of little sandwiches (small books that tell the tales)” and have divvied them up into five “spreads”: The Oldest House; the San Miguel Chapel; the St. Francis Cathedral; the Palace of the Governors; and LaFonda Hotel. In each “spread” you’ll find amazing historical and cultural facts, artfully and intelligently displayed—everything from beginning footprints found from 23,000 years ago, to a history of the Matachines, to excerpts from Onate’s diary, to the knotted cord and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, to a history of the obelisk, to the story of Fiesta and Zozobra.
It is a loving display for a city that more than loves history. Santa Fe is history. Ours is a place of many histories, contributed by many people and many cultures, across many centuries. As a community, we continue to learn history and to make history.
As a note from Sally Blakemore says in introducing the Discovery-Book: “Santa Fe today, with its accumulated histories, represents the result of a choice humans have made: to live together and enjoy their lives, in respect and conflict resolution.”
Go see this amazing work of art and history (through August 26). Bring your friends and family. It’s exactly what we need, right now, as we continue to learn, to celebrate, and to think about the meaning of our beloved city’s past, present, and future.