1966 - The Danish Bride

Have I told the tale of the Danish Bride? It all happened in 1966.

Dorte Meyer, a young student from Copenhagen, was traveling through the United States when she wandered through Santa Fe. At the downtown Plaza Bar, she met 28 year old Santa Fean Anton Miller and it was love at first sight.

When Miller proposed marriage, Dorte was agreeable but she wanted to observe old Danish wedding customs. The first of which, it turned out, involved the bride's shoes. The custom in Denmark required the young couple to collect pennies in a champagne bottle – from friends, family, even strangers – and use that money to buy the bride's wedding shoes. Apparently, it was bad luck to obtain the shoes any other way.

So Anton and Dorte acquired a large champagne bottle and posted it on the counter at the Plaza Bar, with a little note explaining its purpose. Soon enough, the jug began to fill with pennies.

Plans were made for the wedding, the license, flowers, justice of the peace and about a month later, the wedding day came. Gene Petchesky, owner of the downtown Guarantee store was contacted and asked if he would sell the bride her wedding shoes in the Danish Custom. Gene, a smart businessman, said yes even though he had no idea what the Danish custom might be.

Anton Miller arrived to pick up his bride on a bicycle, placed her on the cross bar and pedaled over to the Plaza Bar. There, they retrieved a full champagne bottle of pennies and pedaled over to the Guarantee Store. There, the bride tried on every pair of white shoes in stock, finally settling on the first pair she had tried on. That, I believe, is an American custom.

When it came time to pay, the bride called for the champagne bottle, pulled a hammer out of her purse and smashed the bottle, spraying pennies everywhere. All this to the astonishment of Gene Petcheskey and his staff. But once the custom was explained, Petcheskey took it in good humor and set his staff to count the pennies – $15.91 – which he accepted as payment.

Then the couple pedaled to the Justice of the Peace for the ceremony but there was a short delay as the best man was sent back home for the forgotten marriage license. He also made a short detour for flowers which the groom had also forgotten. The best man didn't say where he got the flowers, but he did say that it was lucky he lived next door to a cemetery.

After the ceremony, the happy couple repaired to the Plaza Bar for the reception where the bride was treated to an ice cream sherbet and the wedding party toasted with traditional Swedish gloegg, a hot spiced drink. Apparently pretty potent as well, because the groom – barely wed 4 hours – was later arrested on Lincoln Avenue for public drunkenness and drunk driving on a bicycle. The complaint was lodged by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Miller of Garcia Street, who weren't able to convince their intoxicated son to come home.

Oh, carrying a bride on a bicycle is also a Danish custom but not in this case. Between them, Anton Miller and Dorte Meyer owned six cars and one airplane but none of them worked. And they owned two bicycles, but one of them had been stolen earlier in the week. So, as it happened, the one bicycle was all the transportation they had.

1954 - Old and New

For all the emphasis on history and tradition, the City is always ready to try something new.

Take the Plaza in 1954, for example. That year the Kiwanis Club asked the City to build a bandstand, reviewing stand and a public comfort station on the plaza. It would cost about $12,000 and the Kiwanis offered to pitch in on the funds. As well, the Club asked for a better display space for the ship's bell from the USS New Mexico with some informative bronze plaques. At the time, the ship's bell was installed on the northwest quadrant of the Plaza, mounted on a concrete platform perfect for sitting and people watching. While the City Councilors were interested in the ideas, nothing ultimately came of them.

The City had already begun to beautify the Plaza by installing an iron fence and gates around the Soldier's Monument. That was Henry Dendahl's idea. He got the fence from the old Manderfield estate and the gates from the Staab house, plus donations of labor and materials from Plaza merchants. Dendahl planned an annual painting of the fence with a free lunch at the Canton Cafe for all the volunteers.

The big news on the Plaza was the work on the ancient Palace of the Governors. Workmen put up scaffolding right on Palace Avenue and, to howls of protest from Santa Feans, began removing the ends of the vigas which protruded from the portal. Turns out the vigas had rotted at the ends and were leaking rain water under the roof. New dummy viga ends would be installed so the Palace would look the same. Around the corner on the Lincoln Avenue side, the old adobe bricks over the gate – the one with the blue door – to the patio were giving way so they were replaced – with pumice block. Fake vigas and pumice block . . . I don't think I'll ever look at the Palace of the Governors the same way again.

1954 is the year that the First National Bank – originally located on the east side of the Plaza, picked up and moved to the west side of the Plaza, taking over the space that used to be – well, pretty much everything – the New Mexican printing plant, a movie theater, a Buick dealership and, coming full circle, the original site of the First National Bank when it first opened in 1871 – right on the corner of Lincoln and Palace where it stands today. That was quite an undertaking but the Plaza was only roped off for one day – the day the money and safe deposit boxes were moved. Levine's moved into the Bank's old space – a beautiful example of Greek Revival archictecture first built in 1912. In 1957, under the guidance of John Gaw Meem, Levines remodeled the building to conform to the prevailing Santa Fe style, trading gothic colums for classic wooden posts.

Around the corner from the Plaza, in Cathedral Park, the Archbishop's old house was torn down, condemned as a firetrap. It was an elegant old territorial structure with a full portal and balcony running the length of the house facing Cathedral Park. At one time, it served as the City's first St. Vincent Hospital, beginning in 1865, and later as an old folks home.

In 1954, La Fonda removed thefountain and pool in the patio, replacing it with flagstone to accommodate the Indian dances it featured every summer. Santa Feans were sad to see that fountain go. Across the street, the Camera Shop installed a drinking fountain, but it just wasn't the same.

Still on San Francisco Street, Evan Wilson opened a new cafeteria and soda fountain, called El Refresco, on the northeast corner of Burro Alley. It was right across the alley from Wilson's old popcorn stand in the Lensic Theater Building. That's where he got the nickname, Popcorn Wilson. Oddly, the new place served only ice cream and malts – no popcorn.

And 1954 is the year the St. Francis Cathedral rectory was remodeled. Old timers remember the old peaked roof and huge concrete steps leading up to the high front door. The remodeling removed the roof, created a new lower street side entrance and made the building more Santa Fe style. It was used, in 1954, as office space for the Archbishop and pastor and included a vault where parish valuables were kept.

Up Washington Avenue, a row of 7 large elm trees in front of the Scottish Rite Temple was removed leaving the street pretty bare. Those trees had been planted in 1912 but elm disease was killing them and they'd been breaking up the sidewalks for years. The Temple reported plans to replant using blue spruces. Around this same time, Washington Street was closed off for several days in the summer of 1954 so the phone company could lay underground cables.

The biggest building project in 1954 was the city's first municipal swimming pool. Most of the city's civic organizations, chiefly the Optimists, organized a drive for the pool, raising enough money to buy a large piece of the Penitentiary land – part of the old dairy farm -- which they promptly donated to the City which planned to build the pool facility with a cigarette tax revenues. While the formal name of the pool facility was the Santa Fe Municipal Swimming pool, Santa Fe kids invariably called it the “munici-pool.” These days the pool bears a new name in honor of legendary coach Salvador Perez.

Another piece of Santa Fe history disappeared in 1954. The Gross Kelly Company – a Santa Fe institution since 1879 – was sold to a Texas company. Dan Kelly, Jr., in his first year as president and chairman of the board – just like his father and grandfather were – confirmed the sale. The business continued the distribution of New Mexico products as before with most of the Gross Kelly staff still in place, but the name --- Gross Kelly & Company – was retired.

In 1954, the second oldest Spanish fort in the nation was discovered in Santa Fe. Or better said, re-discovered. Old timers in the city still remembered the fortification known as La Garita – Spanish for bastion or jail – located on a small rise north of Santa Fe, more or less midway between Fort Marcy Hill and the Scottish Rite Temple.

Historians say that it once was used by the Spaniards to hold political prisoners, a few of which were executed by firing squad against a nearby wall. But it had fallen into disuse by the time the Yankees arrived and, over time, began to deteriorate. By 1900, it had lost its roof. Kids played on it, treasure hunters dug around in it and, in the early 50's, it was actually used as a dump site. There exists an old faded photo, taken in 1912, which still shows one wall standing, perhaps the very wall used for executions.

But in 1954, Bruce Ellis, an archaeologist who lived just 50 feet from the site on Washington Avenue, became interested in the site and, with funding from the NM Historical Society, began to poke explore the ruins.

By the end of the summer, Ellis and his crew had uncovered the foundations, revealing the ancient floor plan. It was roughly in the shape of a diamond with 2 bastion towers at the long ends, with a center hall and rooms and jail cells on either side, all enclosed within 3 foot thick adobe walls. La Garita, Ellis said was probably built shortly after completion of the Palace of the Governors and that was built sometime before 1680.

That's typical Santa Fe, history right in your own back yard.

U.S.S. Santa Fe

1942 – The Lucky Lady

The US Navy's newest Light Cruiser launched in June 1942, named after our little City, The USS Santa Fe. The honor of christening came to Caroline Chavez, the daughter of District Judge David Chavez and, therefore, the niece of US Senator Dennis Chavez. She was 14 at the time and a big hit at the launching, with a pretty pink dress and carrying a bouquet of red roses.

For the launching, the traditional champagne bottle contained no champagne at all but water taken directly from the Santa Fe River, right off Alameda street, and blessed by the Archbishop.

The USS Santa Fe served with distinction during the war. She was called the Lucky Lady, for fighting in several battles and always escaping unharmed. 13 Battle Stars, she earned, the USS Santa Fe. She's gone now, scrapped at the end of the war. But the ship's bell, all 900 lbs of brass, is on permanent display at City Hall. I always like to give it a little tap as I leave the building, just to hear it ring.

The Flying "Thing"

1953 - The Year a UFO Landed on Bishop's Lodge Road

Dateline October 25, 1953.

Jimmy Milligan, 16 yr old Santa Fe High School junior, reported sighting an unusual flying “thing.” Milligan was driving home about 9:30 pm, returning from the Young People's Fellowship Dance at the Methodist Church, and heading north on Bishop's Lodge Road, just passing the baseball field.

Suddenly, he saw a ten foot long object floating floating directly across the path of his car. Milligan swerved off the road and got out of his car. On the dirt embankment in the weeds, Milligan saw a metal object, about 10 feet long, shaped like two flat boat hulls attached together.

Milligan said, “ Naturally, I was a little bit scared and hesitant about getting too near it. But when I reached out my hand to touch it, it raised straight up in the air for a couple of feet and took off in a steep climb toward Santa Fe.” Milligan drove home in a hurry

“You should have seen him when he came in the that door,” Milligan's mother said. “He was white and shaky. He looked so odd.”

“I want to tell you something, “ young Milligan told his mother. “You and Daddy'll think I'm crazy but it happened. I'll swear it did. On a stack of bibles.”

His father, B.F. Milligan, a repair foreman for the phone company, took Jimmy back to the site and, together they searched for it. “We didn't see much,” Mr. Milligan reported, “ because there was only the light of the moon to see. We didn't have a spotlight in the car.” Although Jimmy was shy about telling anyone about his story, the newspapers learned of it and persuaded Jimmy to give an interview.

He told the New Mexican reporter that he nearly struck the “thing” with his car as he was driving home. The object was metal colored, like aluminum and shaped like a great big bullet, about three feet high, ten feet long and five feet across. While he was reluctant to touch the object which was resting on an embankment, his curiosity made him reach out. As he did so, the “thing” began roaring and rose up in the air and began climbing in to the air.

“There wasn't any glow or spitting fire,” Millingan reported, “I couldn't feel any heat. No smell of carbon monoxide in the air. When it was taking off, it made a sound like a washing machine, but even faster. You know how a small airplane engine sounds. It was sort of like that, only more high pitched.”

Milligan's mother, a teacher at Harvey Junior High School, said that her son has never been the over-imaginative type of boy, prone to making up tall tales. She said Milligan was a good student with a B average at Santa Fe High School, who spent his free time tinkering with his car, an old roadster.

When queried, Brigadier General G.G. Eddy, commanding officer of the White Sands Proving Grounds issued a public statement, doubting that that “thing” came from the proving grounds. He disclosed that there were many projects of a highly classified nature at the Proving grounds but that he was not at liberty to talk about them.

There are no later news accounts of any further investigation into the October 25 sighting or any explanation for the “thing” that Milligan saw. “You know,” Milligan told the reporter, “I kind of wish I had hit the thing as it came in front my my car. Then I'd have some proof, all right!”

During the course of his interview with the local newspaper, young Milligan drew sketches of the “thing” and helped a New Mexican artist sketch the object for publication. The next day, on the front page, the newspaper published the story and the artists sketches of the unidentified flying object that landed on Bishop's Lodge Road.

1973 - On the Santa Fe Plaza

I was reminded the other day, as I lounged on a bench on the Santa Fe Plaza, of the great controversy of 1973 about this center of the city, the Plaza. The same Plaza which had welcomed loafers like me for more than 300 years.

In 1973, the Plaza was a fire storm of debate. That's the year that the City decided to make the Plaza a no-parking zone, catching the Plaza merchants off guard. Within days, 35 of those merchants, led by Tom Moore and Walter Kahn, organized to reverse the City's decision but the City was holding fast.

The City had built two spacious parking lots – one behind J.C. Penney's and one across the street from the Hilton hotel, neither of which were being used by down town shoppers. The City thought that banning parking on the Plaza would divert shoppers to those lots.

After some wrangling, a solution of sorts emerged. The merchants would give their customers one hour of free parking in any city lot and pay the City for it themselves with dues collected from all the plaza merchants. In this way, the City got money, the merchants got customers and everybody was more or less happy.

Of course, parking was a problem on the Plaza anyway in 1973. The City had embarked upon an ambitious plan to improve the Plaza, to the tune of $150,000 – half of which came from a generous federal grant. Plans for the venerable center of the city included the following:
—The streets that bordered the Plaza would be paved either with
brick or colored concrete. And since those streets were considered part of the city's “arterial” road system, the state kicked in another $67,000. And the plaza merchants, led by the First National Bank chipped in another $29,000.
—The present bandstand would be demolished and a portable band-
stand structure would replace it.
—The banco (bench) which surrounded the Frontier Monument
would be reduced in size.
—The bell from the battleship New Mexico would be removed to a
site in the Capitol complex, next to the Bronson Cutting statue.
_The Gen. Kearney marker and the End of the Trail markers, however, would remain intact.
And the whole plaza would receive extensive landscaping and all of this work under the direction of Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem.

Well, it all sounded good but then a curious thing happened. Since the Plaza was being renovated anyway, the City Council unanimously decided to remove the monument in the center of the Plaza. That bears repeating. The City Council – unanimously – voted to remove the 110 year old Civil War Monument from the center of the Plaza. When the news hit the papers, Santa Fe might as well have been struck by a meteor. What an uproar!

The City Council were apparently responding to a letter from Governor Bruce King who had been urged to request removal of the monument by someone from the American Indian Movement which believed the Monument was, and I'm quoting here, "a source of perpetuating racism and prejudice through the character assassination of our forefathers." This was because the plaque on one side of the monument read:

"To the heroes who have fallen in the various battles
with Savage Indians in the Territory of New Mexico."

That “savage” part apparently rankled the sensibilities of the modern-day Indian of 1973. The other plaque on the monument, by the way, honored union soldiers who battled the rebels during the Civil War.

Citizen reaction was predictable. First, there were those lofty-minded individuals who were racing to be politically correct, urging the removal of the obelisk so as to not to hurt the feelings of any Indian whose eyes might fall upon the plaque. It was, they claimed, the Spaniard or the Anglo who were the savage ones, not the beleaguered Indian.

Interestingly, the five nearby Pueblo Governors were united in keeping the Plaza monument where it was and to let history stand. "This is a reminder of what happened in the past," said Governor Paul Baca of Santa Clara "We feel much the same way about our history, that it should not be changed to fit the times." And savage might even be accurate, Baca said, because “we didn't give up our lands without a fight.”

Then came the historians, who argued that the wording on the plaque merely reflected the times and only survived as a curious but beloved anachronism. Its removal would be tantamount to book-burning or re-writing history. One even pointed out that the term “savages” only referred to the nomadic Apache and Navajo – opponents in a bitter war for two centuries – not our peace-loving neighbors, the pueblo Indians.

Then there were the die-hard Santa Feans who didn't want any change in Santa Fe at all, no way, no how. So what, they wrote to the editor of the local paper, all that happened too long ago to make a difference. One suggested a petition, not to remove the monument, but to recall the City Councilors who voted for the stupid idea.

Them came the jokesters who mocked the controversy. James B. Alley, a local lawyer proposed a second monument dedicated to “the Indians Who Saved their Land and Culture from the Barbarian Hordes of Anglos Who Descended upon Them from Urban Neon Jungles." Then there was the wag who said that as long as we're getting rid of offensive monuments, let's take down the Statue of Liberty with that insulting reference to immigrants as “the wretched refuse.” Then there was the prankster who taped up a cardboard sign on the monument itself to replace the word Indians with Conquistadors so that it read the “Savage Conquistadors.” By the way, this was many years before someone actually chiseled out the word “savages” and solved the problem once and for all.

As it happened, the City had no say about the monument. In fact, any effort to take it down would exact a severe penalty and not just the wrath of the voters. Turns out the Plaza was a both a National Historic Landmark and a protected State Cultural Property. So, no changes were possible on the Plaza without serious federal and state legislation. Oh, and that $75,000 federal grant the City was about to receive to fix up the Plaza – well, the federal government said the City might as well kiss it goodbye if the Plaza Monument were removed.

Even the City Council, dumb clucks that they were, could see the handwriting on the wall. They hastily convened and – unanimously – rescinded their vote to remove the monument from the Plaza. Instead they favored a plan to add yet another plaque to the Monument, explaining the other plaques. This was the same plan, incidentally, which was favored by the Governor of NM, the Indian Pueblos and federal government. The new text would read:

Monument texts reflect the character of the times in
which they are written and the temper of those who
wrote them. This monument was dedicated in 1868 near
the close of a period of intense strife which pitted
northerner against southerner, Indian against white,
Indian against Indian. Thus we see on this monument,
as in other records, the use of such terms as 'savage'
and 'rebel.' Attitudes change and prejudices hopefully
dissolve.

And that's what happened on the Plaza in 1973.

By the way, the 1973 Santa Fe City Council consisted of eight busy men, mostly sober businessmen, who donated their time to lead the city – Robert Berardinelli, Elmer Longacre, Sam Pick, Robert Stuart, Joseph Allocca, Clarence Lithgow, Alex V. Padilla and Mike Scarborough. It was this City Council that will always be remembered in Santa Fe, not for benevolent government or progressive leadership, but for the jaw-droppingly awesome stupidity of their unanimous vote to remove the Plaza Monument in 1973. And the next time you see one of them, tell them I said so.