The past 100 years March 12

| The New Mexican

3/12/2008 - 3/12/08

From The Santa Fe New Mexican:

March 12, 1908: A handsome new stone coping is being placed in front of the public library by George S. Blunt, who donated the fence to the Woman's Board of Trade, which has charge of the library building.

Assessor M.A. Ortiz will leave tomorrow morning on a trip through the northern precincts of the county making assessments on property there.

March 12, 1958: Alligators are OK but a rattlesnake is a no-no. The variety of items that people send — or try to send — through the mails is "amazing," Santa Fe Postmaster Edward Berardinelli stated. But some of the items are not wanted, so much so that there are penalties of up to $5,000 fine and five years imprisonment or both, if you are convicted of mailing them. One of the better-known non-mailables is chain letters. Others are lottery advertising and tickets, sweepstakes tickets, obscene matter, some articles relating to birth prevention, liquor, firearms, explosives, matches, caustic acids, treasonable statements, poisons and poisonous reptiles.

March 12, 1983: Vallecitos — About 9 a.m. every day, a National Guard tanker truck creeps up main street of this mountain village, sounding an alarm that tells people fresh water is available. Vallecitos residents, whose community well water has become polluted with bacteria, line up outside their homes with buckets, bottles and whatever containers they can find to be filled with fresh water taken from Espanola's municipal system. Residents of the town want to build a new water system, but funding remains a stumbling block.