THE PAST 100 YEARS

From The Santa Fe New Mexican:

July 19, 1918: Woman Cuts Throat; Body In Wine Barrel

July 19, 1968: Santa Fe’s Planning Commission bowed to the wishes of downtown businesses and the Old Santa Fe Association Thursday by denying requests for commercial zoning to create a shopping center and a motel complex.

Coronado Co. requested rezoning from residential and commercial to SC-2 (planned community shopping center near St. Michael’s Drive and Llano Street.

Attorney Matias Zamora, representing Dr. William Herrera and Eddie Lopez, asked rezoning from residential to commercial for about 13 acres south of St. Michael’s Drive near its intersection with St. Francis Drive to build a motel complex. This case has been denied by the city council. The shopping center proposal, submitted by Coronado Co. and land owner of Bradley Thomas, would have created a 26-acre area.

July 19, 1993: CHIMAYÓ — As sunlight was dulled by the late afternoon shadows, 81-year-old Frances Chavez often began perhaps the most noticed of her chores at El Santuario de Chimayó: refilling the church with the blessed earth believed to have healing powers.

As caretaker of the sanctuary for more than 20 years, replacing the dirt was one of many responsibilities entrusted to Chavez, one that grew larger with the increasing number of visitors who cart off the holy soil by the handful to tap its power.