On This Day in New Mexico History - January 19

On this day in New Mexico History, by Michael Swickard.

Writer Eugene Manlove Rhodes was born on 19 January 1869, at Tecumseh, Nebraska, the son of Hinman and Julia Manlove Rhodes. His father served with Company H, 28th Infantry Regiment Illinois (Full Colonel) during the Civil War. After the war he served in the Nebraska Legislature and later was superintendent of the Mescalero Indian Reservation in New Mexico. Gene Rhodes bought his first saddle as a teenager with soap coupons his family had saved. Between 1884 and 1886 he worked on cattle ranches like the Bar Cross on the Jornada del Muerto in central New Mexico. After attending the University of the Pacific, San Jose for two years, Rhodes tried prospecting and hauling freight before he started his own 6,000 acre ranch in Sierra County, New Mexico. The ranch was nestled in the San Andres Mountains within a valley that would later bear his name. In 1899 Rhodes married May Davison (1871-1957) a widow from Appalachian, New York. A few years later the couple moved to New York after May's father, Louis Davison, became ill. There Rhodes farmed and began writing about his beloved New Mexico. His stories were first accepted by McClure's Magazine and later The Saturday Evening Post. Book List. Rhodes and his wife returned to New Mexico in 1926, living first in Santa Fe, then Alamogordo and finally at White Mountain near Three Rivers in a house provided by former Senator Albert Bacon Fall. In 1930, ill health forced Rhodes to move to Pacific Beach, California where he died of a heart attack on 27 June, 1934. His last request was to be buried in the San Andres Mountains near his old ranch. For many years groups of his admirers would gather by his gravesite on the anniversary of his passing. Many considered Rhodes as the most accurate of the chroniclers of the old Southwest. He had 16 movies and an episode in 1958 of a western series based on his writing. See list here The 1948 movie, Four Faces West from his book Paso Por Aqui is still available to be seen. Rhodes Hall on the campus of New Mexico State University is named in his honor. Rhodes is out of copyright, therefore, Project Gutenberg has some of his books as free ebooks. My favorite is, Bransford of Rainbow Range

On This Day in New Mexico History - January 19