New Mexico

The Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA is a former Roman Catholic church that is now used as a museum and wedding chapel. It is known for... its unusual helix shaped spiral staircase , that may have been created by French carpenter Francois-Jean "Frenchy" Rochas, although the Sisters of Loretto credit St. Joseph with its construction. It has been the subject of legend and rumor, and the circumstances surrounding its construction and its builder are considered miraculous by the Sisters of Loretto and many visitors. The story was the subject of the 1998 movie The Staircase, starring Barbara Hershey and William Petersen. In 1872 Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the Bishop of the Santa Fe Archdiocese, commissioned the building of a convent chapel to be named Our Lady of Light Chapel, which would be in the care of the Sisters of Loretto. The chapel was designed by French architect Antoine Mouly in the Gothic Revival style, complete with spires, buttresses, and stained glass windows imported from France. Although it was built on a much smaller scale, the chapel bears an obvious resemblance to the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
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San Miguel Mission, also known as San Miguel Chapel, is a Spanish colonial mission church in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is claimed to be the oldest... church in the United States. Built between approximately 1610 and 1626. The church was damaged during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 but was rebuilt in 1710 following the Spanish reconquest and served for a time as a chapel for the Spanish soldiers. The wooden reredos, which includes a wooden statue of Saint Michael dating back to at least 1709, was added in 1798. Though the church has been repaired and rebuilt numerous times over the years, its original adobe walls are still largely intact despite having been hidden by later additions. The church is a contributing property in the Barrio De Analco Historic District, which is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Sunday mass is still held at the chapel.
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Fort Stanton was a U.S. military fort built in New Mexico in the United States. It was established to protect settlements along the Rio Bonito in... the Apache Wars. Kit Carson, John "Black Jack" Pershing, Billy the Kid, and Buffalo Soldiers of the 8th and 9th Cavalry all lived here. Confederate forces occupied the outpost in the beginning of the American Civil War after the post was abandoned with the withdrawal of U.S. forces in the region. The Mescalero Apache live in the area near the Fort. Fort Stanton property became America's first federal tuberculosis hospital. In World War II it interned both German and Japanese. Today, Fort Stanton is a popular site for military reenactments and recreational horse riding. It has over 360 miles of trails and is the venue of an annual endurance riding event that has grown to be 6 days long. Fort Stanton is on BLM land surrounded by the Smokey Bear Ranger District of the Lincoln National Forest. In 2008, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson announced plans to establish Fort Stanton as a living history venue, Fort Stanton State Monument, and funds to renovate headquarters, officers quarters, and stables.
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The Evon Zartman Vogt Ranch House is a historic house in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It was constructed in 1915, in the foothills of the Zuni... Mountains one mile southeast of Ramah, New Mexico. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 4, 1993. Evon Zartman Vogt, born in Upper Sandusky, Ohio in 1880. He entered the University of Chicago in 1902, where he became a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity. In his junior year, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which necessitated a change of climate. Hence, he moved to the Territory of New Mexico and worked on a ranch on the slopes of Mount Taylor, near the railroad town of Grants. After a long vacation in Europe in 1914 he returned to Chicago and married Shirley Bergman, and brought her to their new residence in Ramah, New Mexico. They built their house of sandstone and adobe, raised four children, and as the largest sheep ranchers in New Mexico experienced both fortune and as well as economic privation through the 1920s and 1930s.
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Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer is best known for his role as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors, as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever. He became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting... with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a lead role in Willow. Kilmer was born in in Los Angeles, California, the son of Gladys and Eugene Kilmer, an aerospace equipment distributor and real estate developer. Kilmer's grandfather was a gold miner in New Mexico; the poet Joyce Kilmer is a distant cousin of Kilmer's. Kilmer is of German, Swedish, Irish, and Cherokee descent. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley with his two siblings, older brother Mark and younger brother Wesley . His parents divorced when he was nine years old.
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Conrad Nicholson Hilton was an American hotelier. He is well known for being the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain. Hilton was born in the city of San Antonio, in the New Mexico Territory. His father, Augustus Halvorsen "Gus" Hilton, was an immigrant from Norway, and his devout Catholic mother,... Mary Genevieve , was an American of German descent. Hilton grew up with seven siblings: Felice A. Hilton, Eva C. Hilton, Carl H. Hilton, Julian Hilton, Rosemary J. Hilton, August H. Hilton, Helen A. Hilton, and Baron Hilton. Hilton attended Goss military , and St. Michael's College , and the New Mexico School of Mines . He was a member of the international fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon. In his early twenties, Hilton was a Republican representative in the first New Mexico Legislature, when the state was newly formed. He served two years in the U.S. Army during World War I. While he was in the army, his father was killed in a car accident.
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Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and... Little Miss Sunshine, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2006. He is the father of actors Adam Arkin, Anthony Arkin, and Matthew Arkin. Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Beatrice , a teacher, and David I. Arkin, a painter and writer who mostly worked as a teacher. Arkin was raised in a Jewish family with "no emphasis on religion"; his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine. The family moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles when Arkin was 11 years old, but an eight-month Hollywood strike cost Arkin's father a set designer job he had wanted to take. During the 1950s Red Scare, Arkin's parents were accused of being Communists, which led to David losing his job when he refused to answer questions about his political affiliation.
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William Henry "Bill" Mauldin was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist from the United States. He was most famous for his World War II cartoons depicting American soldiers, as represented by the archetypal characters "Willie and Joe", two weary and bedraggled infantry troopers who... stoically endure the difficulties and dangers of duty in the field. These cartoons were broadly published and distributed in the American army abroad and in the United States. Mauldin was born in Mountain Park, New Mexico. His grandfather had been a civilian cavalry scout in the Apache Wars and his father was an artilleryman in World War I. After growing up there and in Phoenix, Arizona, Mauldin took courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts under the tutoring of Ruth VanSickle Ford. While in Chicago, Mauldin met Will Lang Jr. and became fast friends with him. Mauldin entered the US Army via the Arizona National Guard in 1940. While in the 45th Infantry Division, Mauldin volunteered to work for the unit's newspaper, drawing cartoons about regular soldiers or "dogfaces".
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Utah is a state in the Western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896. Utah is the 13th most extensive,... the 34th most populous, and the 10th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,817,222 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S. The name "Utah" is derived from the name of the Ute tribe and means "people of the mountains" in the Ute language. Utah is bordered by Arizona on the south, Colorado on the east, Wyoming on the northeast, Idaho on the north and Nevada on the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico. Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state in the Union. Approximately 60% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life. The state is a center of transportation, information technology and research, government services, mining, and a major tourist destination for outdoor recreation. According to the U.S.
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The State of Colorado is a state in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America. Colorado may also be considered to be a part of the... Mountain, Southwestern, Midwestern, and Central regions of the United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the state population was 4,753,377 in 2006, a 10.49% increase since U.S. Census 2000. Denver is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado. Citizens of Colorado are known as Coloradans.
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Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. Oklahoma is the 20th most extensive and the 28th most... populous of the 50 United States. The state's name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning "red people", and is known informally by its nickname, The Sooner State. Formed by the combination of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory on November 16, 1907, Oklahoma was the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans or, informally "Okies", and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City. A major producer of natural gas, oil, and agriculture, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. It has one of the fastest growing economies in the nation, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth and gross domestic product growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's primary economic anchors, with nearly 60 percent of Oklahomans living in their metropolitan statistical areas. With small mountain ranges, prairie, and eastern forests, most of Oklahoma lies in the Great Plains and the U.S.
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Texas is the second most populous and the second most extensive of the 50 United States, and the most extensive state of the 48 contiguous United... States. The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas. Located in the South Central United States, Texas shares an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south, and borders the US states of New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles , and a growing population of 25.7 million residents. During the Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas: La Provincia de Texas. Antonio Margil de Jesús was known to be the first person to use the name in a letter to the Viceroy of Mexico in July 20, 1716. The name was not popularly used in daily speech but often appeared in legal documents until the end of the 1800s.
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