Santa Fe Secrets

What inflammatory word did a stranger chisel off Santa Fe's Soldiers Monument?Who haunts the city's best known hotel?How did Santa Fe disappear from Route 66?What creatures lurk in tunnels beneath Santa Fe?Find a different view of New Mexico's capital in this unique, lighthearted guide to Santa Fe's less-well-known attractions Discover . . .A Top Secret Portal and an Underground City . . . A Wailing Ghost Who Haunts an On-again Off-again River . . . A Beheading on the Plaza and a Kidnapped Madonna . . .Two Wells for Padre Gallegos and Two Jails for Billy the Kid . . .A Legend-Worthy Bell, Four Hebrew Letters, and a Mysterious Chiseler . . . and Why Santa Fe's Newspaper Editor once wrote, "'Dobe or Not 'Dobe? That is the Question." Enjoy exploring the Intriguing Oddities, Distinctive Quirks, and Special Places that make Santa Fe The City Different Selections from Santa Fe Secrets . . .WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH A PREGNANT SOLDIER?In the midst of World War II, the U.S. government sought a secret location for its efforts to build an atomic bomb. Project Manager Robert Oppenheimer selected Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the Jemez Mountains thirty miles west of Santa Fe as the perfect secret "middle of nowhere" spot.But not secret enough for the United States government Those recruited to work on the project-from top scientists to dishwashers-were unaware of their final destination. They only received orders to report to a room at the back of Santa Fe's Trujillo Plaza on Palace Avenue. From here, they disappeared through a "secret portal" to Los Alamos-the back alley.Thousands of men, women, and children spent the war years as near-prisoners in that top-secret mountaintop military facility, lying to friends and family about where they were and what they were doing, even using aliases on rare trips to town.While Oppenheimer spread false rumors that the secret project was developing electric rockets, locals became convinced the isolated location was a hush-hush home for members of the Women's Army Corps who found themselves single and pregnant.ANY BODY HERE?Early Masons, along with the Odd Fellows fraternal organization, opened Santa Fe's first cemetery for non-Roman Catholics in 1853 on the site of today's Scottish Rite Cathedral. The cemetery closed in 1895. Officials had its graves carefully moved to other later-opened cemeteries-or so they claimed. However, skeletons still turn up here occasionally, as they do in much of Santa Fe Tread lightly. Past centuries don't always stay buried in The City Different DISCOVER MORE of Santa Fe's intriguing "skeletons" in SANTA FE SECRETS