Photo Essay

Stately Archives

Treasures from the Land of Enchantment’s interactive encyclopedia

If Wikipedia and Flickr got together in the Southwest and had a love child, it would probably look something like Celebrating New Mexico Statehood. The vastly comprehensive online historical archive is a collaboration between about a dozen institutions, spearheaded by UNM's Center for Southwest Research. Its director, Mike Kelly, says the site boasts about 50,000 photos, some of them dating back to prestatehood in the late 19th century.

Included are images of Pancho Villa; Cecil B. DeMille; and the Duke and Duchess of Alburquerque, Spain, arriving at the Albuquerque Municipal Airport for the "Enchantarama" celebration in 1956. Kelly calls the site—which also has video, music and an array of documents—an "interactive way that everybody in New Mexico can join in a discussion about New Mexico history." He adds that it serves both as a fun tool for looking into the state's past and as a place where students and educators can post and discuss academic papers and topics.

Kelly launched the site about half a year ago in anticipation of the 2012 100th anniversary celebration. "What we wanted to do was have all these resources for folks as they're developing their centennial year projects," he says. Here are some standout images from the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History’s collection, curated by photo archivist Glenn Fye. See the whole project at nmstatehood.unm.edu