page_title: New Mexico
section_title: Statehood (1912–present)
hierarchical_section_title: New Mexico / History / Statehood (1912–present)
caption_attribution_description: English: TMS ID: 63736 TMS Object Number: 012836-M4 Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 12ed9d80-f290-0136-4745-006d5edf7e32
context_page_description: New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States of America; its capital is Santa Fe, which was founded in 1610 as capital of Nuevo México, while its largest city is Albuquerque with its accompanying metropolitan area. It is one of the Mountain States and shares the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. New Mexico is also bordered by the state of Texas to the east-southeast, Oklahoma to the northeast, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua to the south and Sonora to the southwest. With an estimated population of 2,096,829 as of the July 1, 2019, U.S. Census Bureau estimate, New Mexico is the 36th largest state by population. With a total area of 121,590 sq mi, it is the fifth-largest and sixth-least densely populated of the 50 states. Due to their geographic locations, northern and eastern New Mexico exhibit a colder, alpine climate, while western and southern New Mexico exhibit a warmer, arid climate.
  The economy of New Mexico is dependent on oil drilling, mineral extraction, dryland farming, cattle ranching, lumber milling, and retail trade. As of 2018, its total gross domestic product was $101 billion with a GDP per capita of $45,465.
context_section_description: The United States Congress admitted New Mexico as the 47th state on January 6, 1912. New Mexico was eligible for statehood 60 years earlier but was kept out of the union for more than a half century because it had a majority "alien" (i.e. Mexican-American) population.
  European-American settlers in the state had an uneasy relationship with the large Native American tribes, most of whose members lived on reservations at the beginning of the 20th century. Although Congress passed a law in 1924 that granted all Native Americans U.S. citizenship, as well as the right to vote in federal and state elections, New Mexico was among several states with Jim Crow laws, e.g. those who do not pay taxes cannot vote.
  A major oil discovery in 1928 brought wealth to the state, especially Lea County and the town of Hobbs. The town was named after James Hobbs, a homesteader there in 1907. The Midwest State No. 1 well, begun in late 1927 with a standard cable-tool drilling rig, revealed the first signs of oil from the Hobbs field on June 13, 1928. Drilled to 4,330 feet and completed a few months later, the well produced 700 barrels of oil per day on state land. The Midwest Refining Company's Hobbs well produced oil until 2002. The New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources called it "the most important single discovery of oil in New Mexico's history".
  During World War II, the first atomic bombs were designed and manufactured at Los Alamos, a site developed by the federal government specifically to support a high-intensity scientific effort to rapidly complete research and testing of this weapon. The first bomb was tested at Trinity site in the desert between Socorro and Alamogordo on what is now White Sands Missile Range.
  Native Americans from New Mexico fought for the United States in both the First and Second World Wars. Veterans were disappointed to return and find their civil rights limited by state discrimination. In Arizona and New Mexico, veterans challenged state laws or practices prohibiting them from voting. In 1948, after veteran Miguel Trujillo, Sr. of Isleta Pueblo was told by the county registrar that he could not register to vote, he filed suit against the county in federal district court. A three-judge panel overturned as unconstitutional New Mexico's provisions that Indians who did not pay taxes (and could not document if they had paid taxes) could not vote. Judge Phillips wrote:
  Any other citizen, regardless of race, in the State of New Mexico who has not paid one cent of tax of any kind or character, if he possesses the other qualifications, may vote. An Indian, and only an Indian, in order to meet the qualifications to vote must have paid a tax. How you can escape the conclusion that makes a requirement with respect to an Indian as a qualification to exercise the elective franchise and does not make that requirement with respect to the member of any race is beyond me.
  New Mexico has received large amounts of federal government spending on major military and research institutions in the state. It is home to three Air Force bases, White Sands Missile Range, and the federal research laboratories Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. The state's population grew rapidly after World War II, growing from 531,818 in 1940 to 1,819,046 in 2000. Both residents and businesses moved to the state; some northerners came at first for the mild winters; others for retirement.
  On May 22, 1957, a B-36 accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb 4.5 miles from the control tower while landing at Kirtland Air Force Base. (Only its conventional "trigger" detonated.)
  In the late 20th century, Native Americans were authorized by federal law to establish gaming casinos on their reservations under certain conditions, in states which had authorized such gaming. Such facilities have helped tribes close to population centers to generate revenues for reinvestment in economic development and welfare of their peoples.
  In the 21st century, employment growth areas in New Mexico include electronic circuitry, scientific research, call 
caption: A Hispano boy in Chamisal, 1940.
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