Pocket Telephones Are Coming
In the spring of 1919, news out of the Marconi Company—the folks who invented radio, or “wireless telegraph” in the previous decades—was that they were working on a new type of wireless telephone that...
Category: History
There is no mystery to Santa Fe’s famous spiral staircase
One of the biggest legends told in the Santa Fe area is that of the “miraculous spiral staircase” ascending to the choir loft at the Loretto Chapel. The legend that began in the early...
The Futurescope — Looking into the world of Tomorrow
I have long been a fan of Futurology, a term that to me encompasses the collection and examination of writings, mixed-media, and other works of art that depict how life will be in the...
Sending Children Via Parcel Post
In reading this day’s Santa Fe New Mexican from 100 years ago (25 May 1920), I came across this horrible sounding story in which two young boys, ages 8 and 6, were sent from...
Hotel Muehlebach in Kansas City, Missouri—the White House of the mid-west
In September of 1945, Mrs. Bernice S. (née Shonely) Howard (b. 30 Aug 1906, Hiawatha, KS; d. 2 Mar 1999, Racine, WI) was traveling through Kansas City, Missouri, where she stayed at the Hotel...
The Boy Who Rode His Pony 1,600 Miles To Meet The President
One day in late spring of 1928, fourteen-year-old high school sophomore Boyd Manson Jones decided he was going to ride his horse from his home outside Gallup, New Mexico, all the way to Washington,...
Nell “Nellie” Catherine Bunyan Jennings Hardwick
It has been quite some time since I published one of my Postcard Stories. The reason is that I came across a postcard whose author is connected to a convoluted web of interesting characters....
“And the day he died it was a birthday and I noticed it was mine.”
I have always liked Graham Nash’s song, Cathedral, and it is hard not to hum it when strolling through the Santa Fe national cemetery while taking gravestone photos for people. I’m always scanning others...
When Sears & Roebuck were the industry disrupters
With Sears now in decline and fading fast it is interesting to look back at how this mighty giant was once a major threat to established brick and mortar stores at its founding. Richard...
Cemetery Tale: A near nuclear disaster over Albuquerque
A B-29 with a crew of 13 crashed into the Manzano Mountains about 3 minutes after taking off from Kirtland Air Force base, at 9:41pm on 11 April, 1950. The plane and crew had...
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