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1947 UFO Crash
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Roswell, New Mexico—North and Northeast
Roswell is generally growing to the north and northwest. This more recently developed part of town contains most chain store and chain restaurant locations, as well as new homes, businesses, and subdivisions.
Selected Attractions:
Roswell Mall and Surrounding Area (4501 North Main Street). It’s a mall—what else can you say? Stores come and go. Roswell’s only movie theater—eight screens—is hidden behind the main structure.
Wal-Mart Super Center west across Main Street from the Mall has a good selection of UFO and alien souvenirs and alien-themed window decorations—plus a selection of Roswell High School clothing. 623-2062. Open 24 hours a day, every day. Pecos Trails, the city bus service, makes its northernmost stop here.
The Overpass (5.5 miles—9 km—north of 2nd Street). This is Roswell’s only overpass—the next closest one is, who knows where? Maybe the Interstate at Clines Corners? There’s even a sort of clover leaf. Who says we aren’t up to date in Roswell!
The WIPP Road or the Roswell Bypass or, officially, the Roswell Relief Route branches off to the west from US 285 at The Overpass and circles the western edge of the city, reconnecting with US 285 (Southeast Main Street) south of town. It was completed in 1992 so that radioactive waste headed for the WIPP site (Waste Isolation Pilot Project) 100 miles (160 km) to the south near Carlsbad doesn’t have to travel through downtown Roswell. Initially of course, the WIPP site was designated to receive only overalls, gloves, and similar materials lightly contaminated by radiation, but by now who knows what heavy-duty nuclear waste may be whizzing by. If you see a truck loaded with the characteristic round, squat Tru-Pak containers, keep your fingers crossed. In spite of what you might expect, the Relief Route is only a two-lane, non-limited-access road, so beware of two-way and cross-street traffic.
South Fork of Salt Creek (9 miles—15 km—north of 2nd Street). Dr. Robert Goddard conducted his experimental rocket launches west of the highway here from 1930 to 1942 on land leased from one of pioneer farmer Martin Corn’s sons. Goddard’s wife Esther usually helped with the experiments. She had two jobs: the first was to film the launch; the second was to put out the prairie fire it caused. When Charles Lindbergh came to visit Dr. Goddard in 1934 and 1935 he flew his small plane here to circle the launch tower—now standing on the grounds of the Roswell Museum and Art Center—and inspect the proceedings.
Macho Draw (North Fork of Salt Creek) (14 miles—23 km—north of 2nd Street). While John Chisum was the original Pecos Valley cattleman, Martin Van Buren Corn (1841-1915) was the original Pecos Valley farmer. He arrived here from North Carolina, by way of Georgia and Texas, in 1878. With the help of Chisum, Corn and his growing family (he eventually fathered twenty children by two wives—no wonder there are still so many Corn descendents in the Pecos Valley today, although they no longer ride in the Eastern New Mexico State Fair Parade in the section called “Crops Raised in New Mexico”) homesteaded land on the South Spring River—currently the location of Buena Suerte Ranch—a few miles southeast of Roswell. His corn, wheat, and alfalfa crops and his fruit orchards prospered, but in 1894 he sold his land to J.J. Hagerman and moved here looking for a healthier spot because of his asthma.
In an optimistic spirit, Corn named his new home “Eden Valley” (check the historic photo of Macho Draw in the Roswell Public Library lobby for any resemblance to the Garden of Eden) and tried to build an irrigation reservoir by damming Salt Creek, in one of Roswell’s many failed irrigation schemes. He did manage to raise sheep, cattle, and prized vegetables for the Roswell market. Today this heavily irrigated area—the water now comes from wells—does present a spot of green in the otherwise brown prairie.
Farther upstream to the west, Macho Draw crosses today’s Hub Corn Ranch near their UFO Crash Site. The sign and turnoff are about 25 miles (40 km) north of Roswell.
Roswell Livestock Auction Company (900 North Garden Avenue). Have you ever been to a livestock auction? It’s fun and exciting! But not for the squeamish or fastidious—even though the sign requests that you “Scrape stuff off your boots before you enter.” Sales start every Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. and run until sometime in the afternoon or evening, or even the next day—depending on how much stock there is to sell. Don’t worry about taking home a steer accidentally. You have to register as a buyer if you want to bid on the animals.
A large parking lot—empty most days but crowded with pickups on Mondays—surrounds the sale barn. Pictures of outstanding livestock, a bulletin board for events and sale items, and a plaque, The Code of the West (they mean it!), hang in the lobby. Walk straight through to the sales arena, or turn right to the Sale Barn Café that serves hearty cowboy breakfasts till 11 a.m., then burgers and Mexican food. 622-1279. Open M 6 a.m. until the sale ends, Tu-Th for break-fast and lunch, F-Sun closed, holidays variable.
Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art (409 East College Avenue). This wonderful museum houses the stunning collection of contemporary art amassed by Roswell oilman and artist Donald Anderson, brother of former Atlantic Rich-field Oil Company President Robert O. Anderson. Donald Anderson was instrumental in organizing the Roswell Artist-In-Residence Program that provides selected artists with a stipend, living space, and a studio in the artists’ compound in northeast Roswell for one year. The works of over 100 former Artists-in-Residence, including Howard Cook, Elmer Schooley, and Stuart Arends, hang in this gallery and are available for purchase. Favorites include the school of golf bag fish and the fiberglass western sculptures of Luis Jimenez. Anderson’s large stylized landscapes are also on display. 623-5600. Free admission. Open M-F 9-4, SS 1-5, closed holidays.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Poor Clare Monastery (809 East 19th Street). Saint Clare founded her order of Catholic nuns in the Thirteenth Century under the guidance of Saint Francis of Assisi. In addition to the usual three vows of most orders—poverty, obedience, and chastity—Poor Clare nuns take a vow of enclosure. Cloistered from the world and maintaining silence much of the day, Poor Clares devote their lives to prayer, penance, study, and labor, hoping to surround the world with prayer. Today there are Poor Clare Monasteries in 25 states and 76 countries around the world.
Roswell’s Poor Clare Monastery opened in a remodeled farmhouse in 1948. Former Abbess Mother Mary Francis (1921-2006) described its founding and her life in Roswell in her inspirational book entitled The Right to be Merry.
Roswell’s Poor Clare Monastery welcomes the public to pray in their modern chapel any time during the day and to attend morning Mass at 7:30 or afternoon Rosary at 4:00 daily. Quiet voices of cloistered nuns singing on the other side of the grille inspire peaceful contemplation.
Goddard High School (701 East Country Club Road). Robert H. Goddard Senior High School, dedicated by Esther Goddard in a ceremony honoring her late husband, graduated its first class in 1965—“We came alive in ’65!” In that Cold War era, an underground school seemed like a good idea. It certainly saves on heating and cooling costs and broken windows are never a problem. The gym, cafeteria, and some recent additions are all above ground, but students spend most of their day in subterranean classrooms, still safe from atomic blasts and the occasional tornado. An added bonus: no annoying cell phones ringing.
The sports teams of this school named for “The Father of Modern Rocketry” are the “Goddard Rockets.” The two rockets out front, backed by a space mural, are not just decoration but are actual rockets donated by the United States Air Force. Inside, a sign in the cafeteria proclaims, “Nancy Lopez ate here,” as this LPGA Champion is Goddard High School’s most famous graduate.
Mescalero Ranch (1501 East Mescalero Road). Miss Effie Olds, of the Oldsmobile family, built this one-story Pueblo Revival style house in 1908. What a socialite heiress was doing in Roswell is hard to imagine—although some say it was mainly hobnobbing with the faculty and administration of NMMI. Later, Dr. Robert Goddard and his wife Esther lived here from 1930 to 1942 while he conducted his rocket experiments both here and on Salt Creek north of Roswell. The workshop that he set up to the west of the house has been recreated with its original equipment in the Roswell Museum and Art Center.
. . .
By 1930 Dr. Goddard, then head of the Physics Department at Clark University in Massachusetts, was tired of difficulties with neighbors who objected to his backyard rocket launches. With the help of aviator Charles Lindbergh, Goddard obtained funding from the Guggenheim Foundation so that he, his wife, and his four assistants could set up shop in Roswell: a location with good weather “in the middle of nowhere,” where his experimental rocket launches bothered no one. Over his next 12 years in Roswell Goddard devised and perfected multi-stage rockets and their liquid rocket fuel, gyroscopic guidance systems, and fin-stabilized steering.
Esther and Robert Goddard enjoyed their time in Roswell. Both participated in civic and social activities and welcomed visitors to their Mescalero Ranch including the family of artist Peter Hurd and Charles Lindbergh with his wife, Ann Morrow Lindbergh.
Throughout the 1930s Dr. Goddard and Colonel Lindbergh tried unsuccessfully to interest the United States Government in military applications of Goddard’s pioneer work with rocketry—with no success. The German Government was much more interested however. Careful study of his publications and patents helped their rocketry expert, Wernher von Braun, develop the V-2 rockets that devastated London during World War II.
Dr. Goddard did finally receive recognition from the U.S. Government for his pioneering contributions to rocketry. When the U.S. space program began in earnest in the 1950s, the government realized (because of a series of patent infringement cases) that Goddard had already developed most of the necessary basic rocket technology. In 1959 the Roswell Museum and Art Center dedicated a wing funded by the Guggenheim Foundation to him, and the U.S. Government awarded Goddard a Congressional Gold Medal. Exhibits, memorials, and institutions around the world such as NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center now honor Dr. Goddard’s accomplishments. Roswell had already honored him in the 1950s with the name of its minor league professional baseball team, the Roswell Rockets, and then of course with Goddard High School and its teams, the Goddard Rockets.
Artist-in-Residence Compound (Howard Cook Road). Most tourists don’t realize that Roswell is an important location in the international art scene. Roswell’s prestigious Artist-In-Residence Program has been granting highly coveted year long fellowships to four artists each year since 1967: “The Gift of Time” which includes use of a small house and a studio in this Compound as well as a small stipend. Over 175 artists from North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, such as the first Artist-in-Residence, Howard Cook, along with Barbara Latham, Stuart Arends, Luis Jimenez, Milton Resnick, Elmer Schooley, Gussie du Jardin, and Alison Soar have spent a year working in Roswell. Works of former Artists-in-Residence are on display in the Roswell Museum and Art Center and the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art.
West of the Compound, the home of Roswell oilman and artist Donald Anderson, organizer of the Artist-in-Residence Program, is identifiable from East Berrendo Road by what looks like a Maine lighthouse and a portion of Stonehenge—actually a sculpture entitled The Henge—in a distant field. Reportedly, he keeps most of his large art collection in extensive underground chambers beneath the field.
Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge (4065 Bitter Lakes Road: North on Main Street to Pine Lodge Road just north of the Mall, then east on Pine Lodge Road 7 miles—11 km). Workers from the Civilian Conservation Corps—a government program providing work and training to young men during the Depression—who were living in a CCC camp located here from 1938 to 1940, completed this refuge in 1940. Water levels in the spring-fed lakes here, whose name comes from the high alkaline content that makes their water taste bitter, are managed seasonally to provide optimum habitats for the refuge’s many inhabitants.
A wonderful spot for birding year-round, this refuge on the Central Flyway comes alive with Sandhill Cranes, Canada Geese, and Snow Geese in the fall and winter. Each morning airborne geese and cranes leave here in long straggling lines or V-shaped formations to feed in corn stubble fields around Roswell. In the late afternoon they return to spend the night on the water for protection from predators. Faint cries from above alert the earthbound to their presence in the skies. If the cries sound like geese honking, they are geese. If they sound like pterodactyls, they are Sandhill Cranes.
All sorts of ducks and a few White Pelicans also winter here. Certain areas are set aside for hunting and fishing in season. Endangered Least Terns and a variety of other shore birds nest around the lakes during the summer when dragonflies and damselflies are also abundant. Many visits to the refuge include a glimpse a Roadrunner zipping across the road, but always watch for rattle-snakes—three different species live here. Pecos Puzzle Sunflowers, which grow only in this area, turn the fields yellow in September. This threatened species is the only sunflower that grows in wet areas and marshlands: puzzling.
The recently completed Skeen Visitor Center, named for former New Mexico Congressman and Hondo Valley rancher Joe Skeen (1927-2003), provides information about animals and plants of the refuge. Early morning is the best time to see birds along the eight-mile (13 km) driving tour. The first Saturday morning of each month, staff members lead a two-hour tour of closed parts of the refuge to see sinkholes where tiny rare Pecos gambusia fish as well as two small snails and an amphipod—all three endangered and endemic to the refuge—live. The Dragonfly Festival takes place here in August, when over 200 species of dragonflies and damselflies are easily spotted. 622-6755. Free admission. The tour route is open every day during daylight hours.
For more complete information about touring Roswell . . .
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Roswell,
Your Travel Guide to the UFO Capital of the World!
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Roswell, NM: The Ten Best FREE Things To Do (Plus a Few More)
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