Day 7: Roswell, NM to Pecos, TX
Windowless schools (advantages of), Strangites, Project Gnome, brobdingnagian stars
Leaving Roswell we take the the US-285 South through flatness, the horizon occasionally showing a thin green line of irrigated farmland in the distance, until we reach the town of Artesia - named after its profusion of artisan wells, now mostly dry.
In 1962 Artesia opened the nation’s first fully subterranean school, Abo Elementary. At the time nuclear war seemed reasonably imminent, and fall-out shelters were becoming another topic for Americans to put on their checklist of vague existential dread - is this lump cancer? Am I really worth loving? If the big one drops where will I go? As a government pamphlet noted, “In the event of a nuclear attack, be prepared to live in a shelter for as long as two weeks, coming out for short trips only if necessary”.
Under these conditions the idea of putting all of your kids underground was just good sense. To make this dream reality, Artesia called on architect Frank Standhardt, who happened to specialize in schools without windows - who was in fact passionately anti-window. Windowless schools were superior to the fenestrated variety because, he believed:
…uninterrupted walls prevented external distractions, created more display space, and eliminated the task of washing dirty windows and replacing broken panes. He asserted that complete control of classroom lighting eliminated glare, produced uniform intensity throughout the room, and improved conditions for audio-visual presentations.
Schools without windows actually became a minor trend in the 1960s. In 1966 the New York Times calculated that “more than 150,000 youngsters living in 23 states from New York to California” were studying in isolation from the sun and breeze. Those interested in learning more were encouraged to write to Joseph Platzker, building code consultant, who had prepared a seventeen-page report on the topic.
In any case, under Standhardt’s supervision nearly every last bit of Abo Elementary was shoved under the earth; the only aboveground components were two roof-top basketball courts (which, being on the roof of a subterranean building were, of course, flush with the ground), and three stairwell entrances. Beneath these was enough space to accommodate 540 regular students; although in the case of atomic war the facilities could shelter a population of up to 2,160 (after which the school’s entrance would be sealed up by “two 1800-pound steel doors”). Those lucky enough to make it inside would find their new living quarters equipped with:
…two deep wells for an uncontaminated water source, air filters, bedding, survival food, an emergency power system, decontamination showers, and a morgue.
Odd as this may (or may not) sound, reports from students and teachers were positive; classrooms seemed calmer, more meditative, and students enjoyed a sense of specialness and security - although they did sometimes worry about what might happen to their parents if war broke out. Still, in 1995 Abo Elementary was closed. Whatever its advantages, as an underground school in a world of overground schools it was too eccentric to maintain and update. It was replaced by Yeso Elementary which stands - stands mind you - just next door.
Artesia, fascinating town that it is, also serves as one of the very few gathering places for the minute remnant of the Strangite religious movement. This movement, one of the several branches of early Mormonism, was founded by James Strang after the assassination of Mormon founder Joseph Smith in 1844.
Strang was one of those American specialties, a person who operated on the knife’s edge between con artist and prophet. He was born in 1813 in rural New York, and spent his early adult years reading extensively and being shiftless and unreliable - for awhile he worked as a postmaster (he was fired for being corrupt, but the experience would come in handy). In his thirties he sought his fortune in Iowa, where he came into contact with Joseph Smith and the nascent Mormon religion. Despite being an avowed atheist Strang converted to Mormonism, possibly as part of a real estate scam; and when Smith was killed, Strang (the ex-postmaster!) was found to be in possession of a letter, dated a few days before Smith’s death, that appointed Strang as his chosen successor.
From our vantage point in the twenty-first century this letter is clearly a fraud, but with it Strang was able to gather several thousand followers. Of these around three hundred joined him in founding a religious commune located on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, and dedicated, among other things, to the principles of polygamy, animal sacrifice, and simple dress. Later he declared himself king of all of the islands in the lake, and he and his followers became, for a period, lake pirates. In 1856 Strang was shot and killed by two embittered former members of his church. As he lay dying he refused to name a successor prophet, and after his death non-Mormons from the surrounding area stormed the Beaver Island settlement, carried off the Strangites living there, and dumped them along the lakeshore without money or possessions.
This only scratches the surface of the strange career of James Strang, and I strongly recommend his recent biography, The King of Confidence, by Miles Harvey. But what I find most fascinating about the entire episode is that despite these utterly inauspicious beginnings the Strangites are still with us. While their numbers are small - in the low hundreds - it is still possible to attend a worship service dedicated to the principles set down by James Strang, conman and erstwhile pirate king.
How Artesia became home to a small Strangite community is not fully clear to me - it appears to come down to a man named Vernon Swift, the long-time leader of the largest remaining Strangite sect. He was born in Artesia, for many years he owned a local electrical repair business (Swift’s Sales and Services); and presumably it was his personal authority that drew his co-religionists. Swift passed away in 2014, and I don’t know to what extent Artesia has retained its importance to Strangites with his passing. I hope it has retained some, and that there is a small, tasteful pilgrimage every year, an ever so slight uptick in motel reservations, a gathering of elderly couples in business attire, practical and soft-spoken, discussing ecclesiastical maters over their bread rolls.
Continuing south we pass small towns that offer only the barest evidence of themselves to the highway - a low-slung building in the distance, a parking lot of ambiguous utility, a small shadeless playground. A little after Seven Rivers we exit onto NM-524 East, which takes us just to the south of Carlsbad, a comparatively gargantuan metropolis of over fifty-thousand, built on potash mining and cave tourism (the famous Carlsbad Caverns); once past we rejoin the 285.
The next town is Loving, where after a few twists and turns we head east on the NM-128 until we reach Mobley Ranch Road; which then takes us south to another smaller, nameless road, and by the side of this road, way out in the back of nowhere, a plaque has been erected in the desert that reads in part:
The first nuclear detonation in the Plowshare Program to develop peaceful uses for nuclear explosives was conducted below this spot at a depth of 1,216 feet in a stratum of rock salt, the explosive equivalent to 3,100 tons of TNT.
This plaque is all that remains of Project Gnome.
We have already spent some time today considering the destructive potential of nuclear weapons; now for a moment let us ponder whether they can be used for good. From 1961 to 1977 the US Government, under the designation Project Plowshare, detonated thirty-two nuclear warheads in locations throughout the US at a cost of nearly one-billion dollars and came back with the answer: no.
Actually that is too definitive. What they found is that doing things with nuclear explosions is hard, and tends to create radioactivity, and the American public and political system is too pro-easiness and anti-radioactivity to make sustained support for the peaceful use of atomic weapons possible. As well, certain of the projects sponsored were not extremely well-conceived or safe, and that created a negative impression. And this brings us to Project Gnome, the very first experiment carried out under the auspices of the Plowshare program.
Underneath much of southeastern New Mexico lies the Salado Formation, a massive deposit of halite, a.k.a. rock salt. And so, in the early years of the Atomic Age, scientists asked themselves, what if we blew up a bomb down there in all of that salt? Multiple hard-headed, practical, scientific reasons were put forward as to why this might be a good idea. But it is hard to escape the impression that people just wanted to find something to do with this incredible new thing, the atom bomb. Something that was nice, and not shockingly horrific. “Atoms for Peace,” was a popular slogan of the time; the Post Office put it on a three-cent stamp.
Workers dug a shaft into the New Mexican desert. At around twelve-hundred feet they made a right-angle turn, tunneling horizontally; the idea was that when the bomb was set off the tunnel would collapse, preventing any radiation from rushing up the vertical shaft to the surface. At the appointed hour the world press was invited to attend this dawning of a new era of peaceful nuclear detonation; even the Russian government was invited to send an envoy (they declined).
Those attending were meant to listen to speeches and mark an event, not to see, hear, or feel any evidence of the massive explosion occurring beneath their feet. But things did not go entirely to plan. At the moment of detonation,
…the earth heaved about four feet and most people felt a "thump." The shock sent a blanket of dust swirling across the site, and the seismic wave cracked a filling station wall at Malaga, twelve miles away. It also knocked cans off a shelf in nearby Loving. One rancher remarked of the shock: "That shook up your rattlesnakes."
A few minutes after the blast, reporters observed a white plume spouting from the earth nearby. A fault in the blast site had allowed radiation to leak free; the press luminaries invited to witness the birth of a new, more benign nuclear age were being doused with radioactive steam. Perhaps even worse (from a public relations perspective), the radiation ruined the film of the assembled photographers.
After this there was not a lot of emphasis on Project Gnome for awhile, but about five months later the government sent down a team to investigate what exactly the result had been of blowing up all this salt (by this time radiation levels were deemed to be safe). After clearing the collapsed tunnel they found that the explosion had created a massive, roughly spherical cavern, as tall as an eight-story building. The temperature in the cavern was still very hot, about a hundred degrees, and it was incredibly humid. Gamma rays from the explosion had transformed the chamber’s walls “from dull grey into deep shades of blue, yellow, and black”. Scientists returned several times over the years to study the blast site - the only humans ever, I believe, to have visited a cave carved out by a nuclear explosion.
Aside from this startling new geological feature, little else had been accomplished by Project Gnome. In 1968 the site was sealed up, and now all there is to see here is a small plug at the top of the well, and next to it this plaque.
From here we take Twin Wells Road until we rejoin the NM-128. Shortly thereafter we turn south on Orla, which takes us to the Texas border, marked only by a cattle guard across the road. At the very small town of Mentone we take the 302 back once again to the 285; on the way we cross the Pecos River, here little more than a stream. Continuing in a rough parallel to the river’s twisting course we soon arrive at the town of Pecos proper, known for its prison and its cantaloupes, and where we will spend the night under the famously incandescent and brobdingnagian stars of Texas.
Sources
Why Americans Stopped Building Fallout Shelters, by Lily Rothman
Underground Buildings, by Loretta Hall
One Nation Underground, by Kenneth D. Rose
The King of Confidence, by Miles Harvey
New Mexico's Forgotten Nuclear Tests: Projects Gnome (1961) and Gasbuggy (1967), by Ferenc M. Szasz