Rebecca Hauschild
For the Daily Press

A large influx of visitors to Artesia and throughout southeast New Mexico is expected for this year’s National Championship Air Races in Roswell after the races were moved from their usual host city, Reno, Nevada.

Hayley Klein, executive director of the Artesia Chamber of Commerce, gave an update at the Aug. 12 City Council meeting on preparations by local hotels and other businesses for the event, which will be held Sept. 10-14. Klein reported all Artesia hotels are booked but said officials expect many visitors to show up without reservations for lodging.

Race officials reported more than 60,000 tickets for the races have been sold so far.

Area retailers and restaurants are being urged to staff up, stock up, and hire temporary employees, Klein said. Buses will be offered to move people from Artesia to Roswell and back, she said. Roswell is about 40 miles away.

Meanwhile, the Artesia Arts Council is planning to hold its annual Red Dirt Black Gold festival Sept. 11-13, featuring three-days of live music, vendors and various events celebrating the contributions of the oil and gas industry to the community.

Klein said large crowds are expected for this year’s festival as it’s being held simultaneously with the air races.

Skydiving will be available at the Artesia Airport during that week after the council approved a sublease with Skydive New Mexico.

Red Dirt Black Gold kicks off Sept. 11 with a New Mexico heritage night. Friday night is Indie Folk Night with an eclectic lineup including a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. Saturday night will feature Clayton Runer and Cody Canada and the Departed as the top acts to close out the event.

Other business

The council approved creating a new city administrator position to aid Mayor Jon Henry in the city’s day-to-day operations. The pay range was listed as $112,424 to $168,418 per year, and officials said it would be “a step above” city department heads.

The council’s Infrastructure/Planning committee recently reviewed utility rates and options and is considering rate increases.

“As a reminder to the public, the city’s utility rates have not been adjusted since prior to COVID-19 and the increase in cost to equipment, materials, and supplies has continued to plague the country,” said District 3 council representative and mayor pro tem Jeff Youtsey.

“Through prudent management of our department here and city staff our utilities have remained solvent over the past several years despite the massive inflation we’ve all experienced. But it’s caught up to us. It’s come to the point we’re going to have to do something.”

The city of Artesia will be receiving $2.3 million in grants for several projects through funds appropriated in the last legislative session. The projects include $300,000 for an all-inclusive park design, $1 million for City Hall renovations, $500,000 for police vehicle purchases and $500,000 for rescue engine purchases.

Community Development/Infrastructure Director Byron Landfair said the project to renovate 26th Street is in the second phase.

Upcoming projects this year include water line replacement on 8th Street from Main Street to Washington Street and resurfacing three intersections including 12th Street and Mahone Drive, South Roselawn Avenue and Mahone Drive, and South Roselawn Avenue and Chisum Avenue.

A new sidewalk will be constructed on the west side of Bowman Drive from Richey Avenue to Mahome Drive and a new three-way stop will be added on Richey Avenue at the intersection of Bowman Drive.

Adrian Hedden
Carlsbad Current-Argus

Beginnings of New Mexico’s atomic history uncovered in Los Alamos

An aging, wooden house in a rural New Mexico town was a flashpoint in New Mexico’s difficult, decades-long entanglement with the nuclear age.

Walking from the front to the back of the 95-year-old home in the center of what is today downtown Los Alamos puts the visitor on top of the footsteps of a man who would revolutionize warfare and be pointed at through history as the alleged “Father of the Atomic Bomb.”

“There’s a feeling. It’s different,” said Allan Saenz, owner of the Sala Event Center in Los Alamos, as he stood on the grounds.

The event center this year hosted the third annual Oppenheimer Festival, kicking off with a guided walking tour through Los Alamos to view several historical landmarks, mostly tied to J. Robert Oppenheimer and his work during the Manhattan Project in developing the world’s first nuclear weapon.

The festival, a two-week series of documentary screenings, expert lectures and musical performances held at the event center, focuses on Oppenheimer’s life and the Manhattan Project’s impact on New Mexico and the world. Local residents and visitors from around the country attend each year to learn about New Mexico’s connection to World War II through the Manhattan Project and the work conducted at Los Alamos, which continues to see nuclear weapons developed today at Los Alamos National Laboratory about 30 miles northwest of Santa Fe.

The festival began Saturday, Aug. 16, starting with the walking tour and featuring a series of movie screenings and lectures about Oppenheimer’s work and the community’s history.

The Oppenheimer House itself is not open to the public, due to structural issues, but was used during filming of the 2023 Oscar-winning Christopher Nolan film named after the scientist. The movie included scenes filmed inside the house, although exterior views of Los Alamos were recreated at Ghost Ranch about 50 miles north of the city.

The film brought renewed interest to the rural town of about 10,000 with a unique past, and Los Alamos Historical Society is pursuing a $5 million renovation project to see the house made accessible to the public.

“Instead of just looking in the windows, you can see what it was like with Oppenheimer carrying that weight on his shoulders, but also making a life here in Los Alamos,” Saenz said.

The house sits at the center of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, a unit of the National Park Service that winds through town and could serve as a tourism draw to drive the city’s economy, said Kristen Hollis, assistant director of the Los Alamos Historical Society.

She said since the film was released to widespread acclaim, visitation has ballooned to include not just “history buffs” but also moviegoers.

“It’s a really big demographic,” Hollis said of recent visitors to the town. “It impacted our visitation substantially.”

Aside from the Oppenheimer House, the festival tour wound through downtown Los Alamos with stops at a memorial garden where local families planted roses to remember their deceased loved ones, many of whom worked for the Manhattan Project or at the lab, and a “demonstration garden” where biologists continue Oppenheimer’s legacy of experimentation by studying plant life in the unique environment among the arid mountains of northern New Mexico.

Participants also walked through “Bathtub Row,” a street where the homes of top scientists in the Manhattan Project were located, the few in the makeshift town to include amenities such as bathtubs, which most houses in Los Alamos initially lacked as the town was hastily assembled amid the war effort and race to create a nuclear weapon. The homes of Bathtub Row were first built for teachers at the nearby Los Alamos Ranch School, which was closed when the Manhattan Project moved in, and later used to house the projects leaders including Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty.

A tragic figure

J. Robert Oppenheimer, a Harvard-education theoretical physicist, was tasked by the U.S. government in 1942 with leading the Manhattan Project, a secret operation in the country’s race to develop the world’s first atomic bomb amid World War II.

The remote, mountainous, plateau-strewn region in northern New Mexico would become central to the project, and a town would grow out of the work to house Oppenheimer and his family along with several other scientists he assembled to join the effort.

The project continued until 1947, when it was disbanded at the end of the war and after its success led to the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and 9, respectively, in 1945. The bombs produced an estimated death toll of up to 250,000 Japanese – mostly civilians.

Although the bombing was at the time viewed as a heroic and necessary way to end the war and prevent even more casualties, the tragedy of the deaths haunted Oppenheimer for years and led to his opposition to the next step in the evolution of atomic weapons: the hydrogen bomb with up to 1,000 times more destructive power.

Oppenheimer’s resistance to the fruits of his own legacy would cost him politically, as he was accused of communist sympathies and saw his federal security clearance revoked in 1954. It was restored in 2022 by then-U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, about 55 years after Oppenheimer’s death in 1967.

Today he is remembered as a tragic, yet quintessential historical figure both in America’s scientific progress and the decades of impacts to New Mexico through nuclear proliferation.

It was at the nearby Trinity Site, in the Tularosa Basin bordered by rural towns such as Socorro and Alamogordo, where Oppenheimer conducted his first atomic test in July 1945, less than a month before the bombs were dropped on Japan.

That event still haunts residents to this day, as they suffered through generations of cancer and other health impacts tied to radiation exposure from the blast.

New Mexicans this year were offered reparations from the federal government for such impacts via an expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, after decades of debate and failed bills in Congress.

Further south in the Carlsbad area, the nuclear industry continues to grow as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant about 30 miles east of the city known for the famous Carlsbad Caverns, plans to continue disposing of nuclear waste beneath the same region until 2080.

And private companies are eyeing the region for potential storage of spent nuclear fuel left over from the nation’s nuclear power plants.

But it all started when Oppenheimer and a team of scientists made a life for themselves among the mesas of Los Alamos and made history – albeit a complicated and often heartbreaking entry in the American story.

“After Oppenheimer did what his country asked him to do, he felt like a cursed man,” Hollis said. “He had a crisis of conscience. It’s hard to judge the decisions that were made.”

An ‘inevitability’

To make room for the lab where the weapon was devised, and secure the region around it, an estimated 36 homesteaders were removed in 1942 from the valley that sits below what is now Los Alamos.

A mix of Anglo and Hispanic Americans, the settlers were ordered to leave their land through eminent domain enacted by the U.S. government, making way for Los Alamos National Laboratory, which still operates today.

But they were not forgotten as the historical society, through a partnership with Los Alamos County, saved one of the oldest houses first erected in 1913 and rebuilt by Victor Romero in 1934

The “Romero House” was removed from the original location at the Pajarito Mesa in 1985 and placed at its current site along the sidewalks and bustling roadways of downtown Los Alamos as part of the historical park.

“When they decided this would be the location of the secret laboratory, most of the homesteaders in the valley were hard to find,” said Chris Judson, a volunteer with the historical society offering thoughts and context during the tour. “They got paid eventually for their land, but they didn’t have a choice. They didn’t own their land anymore.”

Stories like that from the start of the Manhattan Project, and the death and destruction caused by its result makes the topic complicated to explain, said Todd Nickols, historical society executive director.

“We’re not glorifying death or a horrible thing that happened during the war,” he said moments before calling for a moment of silence when the tour reached the Oppenheimer House. “We want to give the objective facts. War is horrible.”

But it was inevitable, said John Charles, during a tour stop at a pair of statues at the entrance to the park, depicting Oppenheimer and U.S. Army Gen. Leslie Groves.

Groves previously led the Army Corps of Engineers in constructing the Pentagon, completed on Sept. 11, 1941.

A year later, he was tasked with overseeing the Manhattan Project and recruited Oppenheimer to assemble and lead the scientists who eventually discovered how to split the atoms necessary to unleash the power of atomic weapons.

To Charles, the work of Groves and Oppenheimer gave the U.S. the edge it needed to outpace World War II enemy Germany and eventual Cold War adversary Russia in developing their own atomic bombs and saved many lives by shortening World War II.

“If we had not dropped the atomic bomb, we would have lost a lot more lives than the atomic bomb took,” Charles said. “The Japanese would have fought to their last woman and child.”

Managing Editor Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.

Here is a look at the latest from the crime files of the Artesia Police Department. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

Aug 8

ARREST

Jaime Wade Johnson arrested fugitive from justice arrest warrant.

LARCENY

8:25 am – Officer dispatched to 1000 block of W. Richardson Ave. in reference to larceny.

WELFARE

2:19 pm – Officer dispatched to 900 block of W. Chisum Ave. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

WANTED

2:41 pm – Officer dispatched to 500 block of W. Missouri Ave. in reference to a wanted subject.

ACCIDENT

3:26 pm – Officer dispatched to N. 13th St. and W. Bush Ave. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

RECKLESS

3:46 pm – Officer dispatched to Oak St. and E. Richey Ave. in reference to a reckless vehicle.

DISTURBANCE

3:50 pm – Officer dispatched to 700 block of n. 10th St. in reference to disturbance.

4:02 pm – Officer dispatched to S. 2nd St. and W. Park Ave. in reference to disturbance.

DOMESTIC

5:15 pm – Officer dispatched to 700 block of N. 10th St. in reference to domestic.

SHOTS FIRED

7:41 pm – Officer dispatched to Roswell Hwy in reference to shots fired.

WANTED

8:40 pm – Officer dispatched to W. Washington Ave. in reference to a wanted subject.

WELFARE

8:40 pm – Officer dispatched to 500 block of W. Bullock Ave. in reference to the welfare of a child.

DOMESTIC

9:42 pm- Officer dispatched to 1900 block of W. Richey Ave. in reference to domestic.

11:24 pm- Officer dispatched to800 block of W. Lolita Ave. in reference to domestic.

Aug 9

Arrest

Bobbie Leeanne Wood arrested for driving while under the influence of intoxication liquor.

Ramon James Ahumada battery against a household member, interference with communications, destroying removing.

ACCIDENT

1:00 am – Officer dispatched to N. 1st St. and W. Main St. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

DISTURBANCE

1:42 am – Officer dispatched to 600 block of N. 8th St. in reference to disturbance.

11:26 am – Officer dispatched to 900 block of W. Cannon Ave. in reference to a family disturbance.

UNWANTED

7:47 am – Officer dispatched to 700 block of W. Cannon Ave. in reference to an unwanted subject.

LARCENY

12:07 pm – Officer dispatched to 1100 block of N. 1st St. in reference to larceny.

FIGHT

1:10 pm – Officer dispatched to 2600 block of W. Richey Ave. in reference to a fight in progress.

BURGLARY

3:34 pm – Officer dispatched to 2200 block of W. Grand Ave. in reference to an auto burglary.

WANTED

4:02 pm – Officer dispatched to 700 block of W. Richardson Ave. in reference to a wanted subject.

DOMESTIC

4:37 pm – Officer dispatched to 2600 block of W. Richey Ave. in reference to physical domestic.

DISTURBANCE

4:51 pm – Officer dispatched to 600 block of W. Washington Ave. in reference to disturbance.

10:10 pm – Officer dispatched 1600 block of W. Sears Ave. in reference to disturbance.

WELFARE

9:40 pm – Officer dispatched to 200 block of W. Hermosa Ave. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

LARCENY

10:12 pm – Officer dispatched to 1900 block of W. Richey Ave. in reference to larceny.

UNWANTED

11:56 pm – Officer dispatched to 2200 block of W. Main St. in reference to an unwanted subject.

Aug 10

SUSPICIOUS

4:04 am – Officer dispatched to 500 block of W. Bullock Ave. in reference to a suspicious vehicle.

DISTURBANCE

9:47 am – Officer dispatched to 500 block of W. Hank Ave. in reference to disturbance.

WELFARE

10:08 am – Officer dispatched to 500 block of W. Hank Ave. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

LARCENY

11:12 am – Officer dispatched to 1100 block of N. 1st St. in reference to larceny.

WELFARE

12:24 pm – Officer dispatched to 700 block of Carper Dr. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

FRAUD

2:13 pm – Officer dispatched to 600 block of N. 26th St. in reference to fraud.

ACCIDENT

4:37 pm – Officer dispatched to 1200 W. Yucca Ave. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

VANDAL

8:21 pm – Officer dispatched to 100 block of N. 25th St. in reference to vandal.

UNWANTED

9:41 pm – Officer dispatched to 600 block of S. 2nd St. in reference to an unwanted subject.

SUICIDAL

11:18 pm – Officer dispatched to 1500 block of W. Sears Ave. in reference to a suicidal subject.

Aug 11

Arrest

Timmy Hoerath was arrested for battery.

RECKLESS

12:34 am – Officer dispatched to N. Roselawn Ave. and Cleveland Ave. in reference to a reckless vehicle.

SHOTS FIRED

1:41 am – Officer dispatched to 400 block of W. Kemp Ave. in reference to shots fired in the area.

SUSPICIOUS

5:40 am – Officer dispatched to 100 block of N. 26th St. in reference to a suspicious person.

ACCIDENT

7:49 am – Officer dispatched to 900 block of S. Roselawn Ave. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

DOMESTIC

10:07 am – Officer dispatched to 500 block of W. Washington Ave. in reference to verbal domestic.

WELFARE

3:09 pm – Officer dispatched to 700 block of W. Quay Ave. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

SUSPICIOUS

3:16 pm – Officer dispatched to W. Quay Ave. and S. 5th St. in reference to a suspicious person.

ACCIDENT

3:29 pm – Officer dispatched to W. Main St. and N. 2nd St. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

WANTED

3:30 pm- Officer dispatched to 600 block of Nw. 26th St. in reference to a wanted subject.

INCORRIGIBLE

5:17 pm – Officer dispatched to 900 block of N. 4th St. in reference to an incorrigible child.

ACCIDENT

5:29 pm – Officer dispatched to 2200 block of W. Grand Ave. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

6:26 pm – Officer dispatched to 1000 block of W.  Main St. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

THREATS

5:30 pm – Officer dispatched to 1900 block of W. Richey Ave. in reference to threats.

DEATH

9:47 pm – Officer dispatched to 1400 block of W. Merchant in reference to an unattended death.

DOMESTIC

10:29 pm – Officer dispatched to 2600 block of W. Grand. Ave. in reference to physical domestic.

Aug 12

DOMESTIC

2:03 am – Officer dispatched to 2200 block of W. Main St. in reference to verbal domestic.

STOLEN

6:03 am – Officer dispatched to 1300 block of W. Lolita Ave. in reference to a stolen vehicle.

WANTED

8:12 am – Officer dispatched to S. 26th St. and W. Grand Ave. in reference to a wanted subject.

WELFARE

9:41 am – Officer dispatched to 200 block of S. 20th St. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

ACCIDENT

11:37 am – Officer dispatched to 1400 block of W. Gilchrist Ave. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

12:08 pm – Officer dispatched to 1400 block of W. Main St. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

SUSPICIOUS

12:59 pm – Officer dispatched to S. 12th St. and W. Richardson Ave. in reference to a suspicious person.

VANDAL

1:15 pm – Officer dispatched to 600 block of W. Main St. in reference to vandal.

WELFARE

2:07 pm – Officer dispatched to W. Grand Ave. and S. 8th St. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

SUSPICIOUS

2:12 pm – Officer dispatched to 100 block of N. 26th St. in reference to a suspicious trespass.

4:12 pm – Officer dispatched to 100 block of W. Cleveland Ave. in reference to a suspicious trespass.

WANTED

2:45 pm- Officer dispatched to 1900 block of W. Richey Ave. in reference to a wanted subject.

BATTERY

3:23 pm – Officer dispatched to 1500 block of W. Cannon Ave. in reference to battery.

UNWANTED

5:33 pm – Officer dispatched to 300 block of N. 14th St. in reference to an unwanted subject.

SUSPICIOUS

6:40 pm – Officer dispatched to 1300 block of W. Richey Ave. in reference to a suspicious vehicle.

LOUD

6:49 pm – Officer dispatched to 2000 block of W. Currier St. in reference to a loud noise.

7:55 pm – Officer dispatched to 500 block of W. Bullock Ave. in reference to loud music.

DOMESTIC

8:50 pm – Officer dispatched to Hope Hwy in reference to verbal domestic.

Aug 13

LARCENY

8:16 am – Officer dispatched to 1400 block of N. 13 St. in reference to larceny.

BATTERY

11:02 am – Officer dispatched to 1500 block of Cannon Ave. in reference to battery.

SUSPICIOUS

11:45 am – Officer dispatched to 400 S. 6th St. in reference to suspicious activity.

1:54 pm – Officer dispatched to N. 13th St. and W. Main St. in reference to suspicious activity.

3:36 pm- Officer dispatched to S. 21st St. and W. Currier Ave. in reference to a suspicious vehicle.

HARASSMENT

7:19 pm – Officer dispatched to 600 block of W. Richardson Ave. in reference to harassment.

WELFARE

7:26 pm – Officer dispatched to 200 block of S. 20th St. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

UNWANTED

7:36 pm – Officer dispatched to 1100 block of N. 1st St. in reference to an unwanted subject.

LARCENY

8:36 pm- Officer dispatched to S. 20th St. and W. Hermosa Dr. in reference to larceny.

9:06 pm – Officer dispatched to 700 block of W. Lolita Ave. in reference to larceny.

SHOTS FIRED

9:33 pm – Officer dispatched to 1000 block of W. Hermosa Dr. in reference to shots fired in the area.

10:02 pm – Officer dispatched to 700 block of N. 13th St. in reference to shots fired in the area.

SUSPICIOUS

9:55 pm – Officer dispatched to 2200 block of w. Main St. in reference to a suspicious person.

Aug 14

Arrest

Christian Olguin arrested for driving while under the influence of intoxication liquor, careless driving.

Miguel Lynn Sifuentez was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Josiah Ezekial Mesquita arrested for municipal failure to pay.  

ACCIDENT

1:32 am – Officer dispatched to S. 13th St. and W. Grand Ave. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

3:08 am – Officer dispatched to S. 13th St. and W. Grand Ave. in reference to a motor vehicle accident.

UNWANTED

3:46 am – Officer dispatched to 100 block of W. Centre Ave. in reference to an unwanted subject.

9:34 am – Officer dispatched to 110 W. Mill Rd. in reference to an unwanted subject.

9:40 am – Officer dispatched to 200 block of W. Quay Ave. in reference to unwanted subject.

LARCENY

9:33 am – Officer dispatched to 2200 block of W. Main St. in reference to larceny.

SUSPICIOUS

11:00 am- Officer dispatched to 1000 block of W. Yucca Ave. in reference to a suspicious person.

2:16 pm – Officer dispatched to 700 block of W. Quay Ave. in reference to a suspicious person.

WELFARE

11:12 am – Officer dispatched to 900 block of N. 13th St. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

LARCENY

11:52 am – Officer dispatched to 800 block of W. Dallas Ave. in reference to larceny.

DOMESTIC

2:48 pm – Officer dispatched to 3300 block of W. Main St. in reference to physical domestic.

UNWANTED

4:23 pm – Officer dispatched to 300 block of S. 39th St. in reference to an unwanted subject.

DISTURBANCE

4:32 pm- officer dispatched to 700 block of W. Lolita Ave. in reference to a family disturbance.

VANDAL

6:15 pm – Officer dispatched to 800 block of S. 1st St. in reference to vandal.

WELFARE

8:01 pm – Officer dispatched to 200 block of W. Main St. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

SUSPICIOUS

8:38 pm – Officer dispatched to 600 block of W. Hermosa Dr. in reference to a suspicious vehicle.

DISTURBANCE

9:09 pm- Officer dispatched to 200 block of E. Grand Ave. in reference to disturbance.

9:57 pm – Officer dispatched to 1000 S. 14th St. in reference to disturbance.

11:15 pm – Officer dispatched to 800 block of W. Quay Ave. in reference to disturbance.

RECKLESS

9:25 pm – Officer dispatched to N. 13th St. and W. Yucca Ave. in reference to a reckless vehicle.

Aug 15

WELFARE

12:49 am – Officer dispatched to 1900 block of W. Richey Ave. in reference to the welfare of an adult.

LOUD

1:39 am – Officer dispatched to S. 28th St. and W. Grand Ave. in reference to loud music.

SUICIDAL

2:54 am – Officer dispatched to 700 block of W. Cannon Ave. in reference to a suicidal subject.

INCORRIGIBLE

7:42 am – Officer dispatched to 200 block of W. Hermosa Dr. in reference to an incorrigible child.