This week’s block is New Mexico
here’s my block
and some information about “the land of enchantment”
Entered Union (rank): Jan. 6, 1912 (47)
Santa Fe is the highest capital city in the United States at 7,000 feet above sea level.
The world’s first Atomic Bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945 on the White Sands Testing Range near Alamogordo. North of the impact point a small placard marks the area known as Trinity Site. The bomb was designed and manufactured in Los Alamos.
Hatch is known as the “Green Chile capital of the world”.
New Mexico is one of the four corner states. Bordering at the same point with Colorado, Utah and Arizona.
The state of New Mexico shares an international border with the country of Mexico.
The leaves of the Yucca, New Mexico’s state flower, can be used to make rope, baskets and sandals.
The Navajo, the Nation’s largest Native American Group, have a reservation that covers 14 million Acres.
To a certain degree New Mexico’s Indian Reservations function as states within a state where tribal law may supersede state law.
The Palace of Governors in Santa Fe is the oldest Government Building in the United States.
1 out of 4 workers in New Mexico work directly for the Federal Government. State and local governments are also major employers.
After WWII Los Alamos and Albuquerque had many new laboratories. Hundreds of highly educated Scientists and Engineers moved in the state. New Mexico soon had a higher percentage of people with Ph.D.s than any other state.
Since New Mexico’s climate is so dry 3/4 of the roads are left unpaved. The roads don’t wash away.
The town of Deming is known for its annual duck races.
Tens of thousands of bats live in the Carlsbad Caverns. The largest chamber of Carlsbad Caverns is more than 10 football fields long and about 22 stories high.
On the same desert grounds where today’s space age missiles are tested, ten-thousand-year-old arrowheads have been found. New Mexican history has ranged from arrows to atoms and has embraced Indian, Spanish and Anglo cultures. Few states can claim such a distinctive past.
“Smokey Bear,” a cub orphaned by fire in 1950, buried in Smokey Bear Historical State Park in 1976
(the site where I found fun facts, didn’t have a link to anything)
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