Category Archives: University Archives
C.H. Tyler Townsend – Early Swashbuckling ProfessorÂ
The University Archives here in the NMSU Library contain some real gems of the early history of the college. These include papers of early administrators (most notably founder and first president Hiram Hadley), manuscript minutes of the earliest meetings of the Board of Regents, real estate deeds and records on the initial land acquisitions for the college, and an…
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Henry Trost’s Design for a Fledgling Agricultural School
New Mexico State University began as Las Cruces College in a two-room adobe building near downtown Las Cruces in 1888. It became New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1890 when it received 100-acres of land from Jacob Schaublin, becoming the territory’s land-grant agricultural school. The first building constructed on the campus was…
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Kathleen Kelly, WASP
In the collections of the Hobson-Huntsinger University Archives in Archives and Special Collections (ASC), are hundreds of letters written to and from former students turned soldiers of World War II. Dean of Engineering Daniel B. Jett, fondly referred to as “Dad” Jett, would create class newsletters and write to his former students to check…
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Clara Belle Williams: The Desire to Aspire
As the NMSU campus celebrates Black History Month, the Open Stacks hopes to highlight the achievements of Black students, faculty, and staff, as well as those throughout New Mexico and the Borderlands. Clara Belle Drisdale Williams made history in 1937 when she became the first African American to graduate from the New Mexico College of…
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Hiram L. Davis – NMSU’s First African American Dean
As the NMSU campus celebrates Black History Month, the Open Stacks hopes to highlight the achievements of Black students, faculty, and staff, as well as those throughout New Mexico and the Borderlands. Dr. Hiram Logan Davis’ tenure as the dean of the NMSU Library lasted less than three years, from January 1987 through September 1989,…
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About Archives and Special Collections
This six-minute video provides a brief introduction to some of the collections and resources in the NMSU Library’s Archives and Special Collections department, including our website, the Open Stacks blog, and the Rocky Mountain Online Archive.
Historic Cookery
As October is Hispanic Heritage Month and American Archives Month, the staff of Archives & Special Collections (ASC) decided to select a recipe from Historic Cookery, a groundbreaking New Mexico cookbook held by ASC, and prepare some of its traditional dishes. In 1931, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert published the cookbook, Historic Cookery, as…
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Dr. Sarah E. Stewart, Mexican-American Cancer Researcher
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month,  Archives and Special Collections would like to highlight the life and career of NMSU alumna Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Stewart, a Mexican-American cancer researcher.  George Stewart, an American mining engineer with interests in Jalisco, Mexico met and married Maria Andrade while working in the region. On August 16, 1906, their daughter Sarah was born. With the start of the Mexican Revolution…
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NMSU History in the University Archives
Hiram Hadley surely had little idea in 1889, when he took the job of leading New Mexico’s newly founded agricultural college near Las Cruces, what New Mexico State University ultimately would become, or the impact it would have on so many residents of New Mexico and beyond. For 130 years, the school has been one…
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