"Land of Enchantment" Has A Long History

Above, Church Rock near Gallup. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The state of New Mexico is called "The Land of Enchantment". Some of us in the state sometimes refer to it instead as "The Land of Potholes" due to the many potholes that permeate the state's highways. But that's a topic for another time.

How did New Mexico become known as "The Land of Enchantment"?

The Albuquerque Journal has a brief history of how that moniker came to be.

They start it out with:

Enchant: to influence by or as if by charms and incantation, bewitch; to attract and move deeply; rouse to ecstatic admiration

These are definitions according to Merriam-Webster but the word has deeper meaning for New Mexicans.

For decades, the country’s 47th state has been known as the Land of Enchantment. It’s sometimes hard to explain the allure of New Mexico to new arrivals and those who have never been here, but alluring it is, despite often finding itself on the bottom of one list or another.

Its laid-back approach to life, its infinite vistas, stunning sunsets, multi-cultural communities who, daily, breathe life into their traditions, and its underlying rebellious spirit have been known to cast a spell on visitors and residents alike. To understand how New Mexico earned this title, we have to travel back more than 100 years to the height of the railroad because it’s the railroad that most likely first coined the phrase.

To read more, go here.