Socorro (, '' sə-KOR-oh'') is a city in Socorro County in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. It is in the

Rio Grande Valley Lower Rio Grande Valley (), often referred to as the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) of South Texas, is a region located in the southernmost part of Texas, along the northern bank of the Rio Grande. It is also known locally as the Valley or the 956 (the ...

at an elevation of . At the 2020 census, the population was 8,707. It is the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Socorro County. Socorro is located south of

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

and north of Las Cruces. The instruments used by the

LINEAR program Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements and objective are represented by linear relationships. Linear ...

are located at Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site (ETS) on the

White Sands Missile Range White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established in 1941 as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, where the Trinity t ...

(WSMR) near Socorro, New Mexico.

History

Founding

In June 1598,

Juan de Oñate Juan de Oñate y Salazar (; 1550–1626) was a Spanish conquistador, explorer and viceroy of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in the viceroyalty of New Spain, in the present-day U.S. state of New Mexico. He led early Spanish expedition ...

led a group of Spanish settlers through the

Jornada del Muerto Jornada del Muerto was the name given by the Spanish conquistadors to the Jornada del Muerto desert Endorheic basin, basin, and the almost waterless trail across the Jornada beginning north of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Las Cruces and ending sout ...

, an inhospitable patch of desert that ends just south of the present-day city of Socorro. As the Spaniards emerged from the desert, Piro Indians of the

pueblo Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlement ...

of Teypana gave them food and water. Therefore, the Spaniards renamed this pueblo Socorro, which means "help" or "aid". Later, the name "Socorro" would be applied to the nearby Piro pueblo of Pilabó. Nuestra Señora de Perpetuo Socorro, the first

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

mission in the area, was probably established c. 1626. Fray Agustín de Vetancurt would later write that around 600 people lived in the area during this period. Mines in the Socorro mountains were opened by 1626. During the

Pueblo Revolt The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé, Popé's Rebellion or Po'pay's Rebellion, was an uprising of most of the Indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish Empire, Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, larger t ...

of 1680, Spanish refugees stopped in the pueblo of Socorro before continuing south, out of the province, to safety. A number of Piro Indians followed them. The withdrawal of Spanish soldiers left Socorro and its Piro inhabitants vulnerable to attack by soldiers from

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

bands and other tribes. By 1692 the settlement was in ruins. The Spanish did not initially resettle Socorro when they re-conquered

. Other than

El Paso El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

, there were no Spanish settlements south of Sabinal (which is approximately north of Socorro) until the 1800s. In 1800, governor Fernando Chacón gave the order to resettle Socorro and other villages in the area. However, Socorro was not resettled until about 1815. In 1817, 70 Belen residents petitioned the crown for land in Socorro. The 1833 Socorro census lists over 400 residents, with a total of 1,774 people living within the vicinity of the village. The mission of San Miguel de Socorro was established soon after Socorro was resettled. The church was built on the ruins of the old Nuestra Señora de Socorro.

Territorial period

In August 1846, during the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

, New Mexico was occupied by the American Army. In

Las Vegas, New Mexico Las Vegas, often known simply as Vegas, is a city in and the county seat of San Miguel County, New Mexico, United States. Once two separate municipalities (one a city and the other a town), both were named Las Vegas: West Las Vegas ("Old Town" ...

, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny proclaimed New Mexico's independence from Mexico. On their way to begin their assault on Mexico, American troops stopped in Socorro. A British officer, Lt. George Ruxton, commented that these soldiers were "unwashed and unshaven, were ragged and dirty, without uniforms..." and were lacking in discipline. In September 1850, New Mexico became a territory of the United States. At the time, New Mexico encompassed what is now the states of New Mexico and

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. In 1850, the population of Socorro was only 543 people. This included 100 American soldiers who were soon moved to Valverde. The first military post built near Socorro was Fort Conrad, south of the town. Built in August 1851, the fort was badly constructed and was abandoned for Fort Craig, located a few miles away. Fort Craig was first occupied on March 31, 1854. The New Mexico and Southern Pacific Railroad (a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe) arrived in July 1880, as it built south through the Rio Grande valley on its way toward El Paso. Its presence contributed to growth of the community, as it also became a center of mining activity of lead and zinc. The New Mexico School of Mines (now the

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech or NMT), formerly New Mexico School of Mines, is a public university in Socorro, New Mexico, United States. It offers over 30 Bachelor of Science degrees in technology, the scien ...

) was founded in Socorro in 1889. On April 24, 1964, Lonnie Zamora, a local policeman, claimed to have observed a flying saucer and two little beings. Zamora's claim is known as the Lonnie Zamora incident.

Geography and geology

Socorro is located south of

, at an average elevation of . The town lies adjacent to the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

in a landscape dominated by the

Rio Grande rift The Rio Grande rift is a north-trending continental rift zone. It separates the Colorado Plateau in the west from the interior of the North American craton on the east. The rift extends from central Colorado in the north to the state of Chihuah ...

and numerous extinct volcanoes. The immediate region encompasses approximately of vertical relief between the Rio Grande and the Magdalena Mountains. Notable nearby locales include the

Cibola National Forest The Cibola National Forest (pronounced SEE-bo-lah) is a 1,633,783 acre (6,611.7 km2) United States National Forest in New Mexico, US. The name Cibola is thought to be the original Zuni Indian name for their pueblos or tribal lands. The name wa ...

, the Bureau of Land Management Quebradas Scenic Backcountry Byway, and the Bosque del Apache and Sevilleta

National Wildlife Refuge The National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) is a system of protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), an agency within the United States Department of the Interior, Department of the Interi ...

s. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the city has a total area of , of which , or 0.21%, is water.

Climate

Socorro has a

cold semi-arid climate Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...

(''BSk''). Summers are hot, reaching on an average of 82 days annually. Winters are mild, but nights are cold with 126 days falling to or below freezing per year. The record high temperature of was recorded on June 26, 1994, while the record low of was recorded on December 21, 1909. Socorro averages of annual precipitation, with a peak of in July.

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 8,877 people, 3,415 households, and 2,151 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 3,940 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 66.16%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.74%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 2.77% Native American, 2.24% Asian, 0.06%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 23.24% from other races, and 4.79% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 54.50% of the population. There were 3,415 households, out of which 31.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.5% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 14.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.0% were non-families. 29.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 3.02. In the City of Socorro 25.4% of the total population was under the age of 18, 16.9% from 18 to 24, 25.7% from 25 to 44, 20.4% from 45 to 64, and 11.6% were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 106.6 males. The median income for a household in the city was $22,530, and the median income for a family was $33,013. Males had a median income of $31,517 versus $23,071 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the city was $13,250. About 24.1% of families and 32.3% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 44.4% of those under age 18 and 23.6% of those age 65 or over. The languages spoken at home were 62.41% English, 35.64% Spanish, 0.90% Chinese, 0.76% German, and 0.36% Navajo.

Economy

Major employers in Socorro include the

(NM Tech), the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

, Socorro General Hospital, the

National Radio Astronomy Observatory The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. for the purpose of radi ...

, municipal and county governments, Socorro Consolidated Schools.

Tourism

Golf

The Elfego Baca Golf Shoot is named after a former mayor of Socorro who survived a gun battle near what is now

Reserve, New Mexico Reserve is a village in Catron County, New Mexico, United States. The town population was 293 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Catron County. Currently the village has two grocery stores, a hardware store, a bar, fairgrounds, and a h ...

, involving over 4,000 bullets that were fired over the course of 36 hours. The golf shoot begins by teeing off from Socorro Peak, also known as M Mountain, at an altitude of , golfers proceed down the side of the mountain some 2,550 vertical feet to the one hole almost three miles (5 km) away.

Points of interest

* San Miguel de Socorro – San Miguel Mission *

Very Large Array The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory in the southwestern United States built in the 1970s. It lies in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena, Ne ...

* Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge * Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge *

Trinity (nuclear test) Trinity was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. MWT (11:29:21 GMT) on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, or "gadg ...

site,

* Owl Bar and Cafe Bataan Death March memorial

Education

Socorro Consolidated School District has approx. 2,000 students and 285 staff. Socorro has one public

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

, Socorro High School. The town is the location of the

, which is a state-funded research- and teaching-oriented university. New Mexico Tech has approximately 1,500 undergraduate students, 500 graduate students, and 150 academic staff. Currently, the Summer Science Program in Astrophysics is hosted at New Mexico Tech.

Infrastructure

Highways

Interstate 25 Interstate 25 (I-25), also known as the Pan-American Freeway, is a major Interstate Highway in the western United States. It is primarily a north–south highway, serving as the main route through New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. I-25 st ...

, north–south travel: north through

and south to Las Cruces which is the terminus for I-25 where it intersects I-10. * U.S. Route 60, east–west travel: east through Clovis; west through Magdalena to

. * NM 1 * NM 439

Rail

Freight service is provided by a

BNSF BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide ...

line from

Belen, New Mexico Belén (; ) is the second most populated city in Valencia County, New Mexico, the United States, after its county seat, Los Lunas. The population was 7,360 as of the 2020 Census. Belén is Spanish for Bethlehem. It gained the nickname "Hub Ci ...

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

. Passenger service ceased in 1968, when

ATSF The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at variou ...

(BNSF’s predecessor) cancelled its El Pasoan train.

Airport

The Socorro airport, located on the southern edge of the city, received scheduled airline service by

Continental Airlines Continental Airlines (simply known as Continental) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1934 until it merged with United Airlines in 2012. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers. Continen ...

in the early 1950s. A

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper ...

aircraft provided a daily northbound flight to Albuquerque (that went on to Denver after several stops) and a southbound flight to El Paso with stops at Truth or Consequences and Las Cruces. Zia Airlines, a small commuter airline, also made on-demand flag stops at the Socorro airport on their flights between Albuquerque and Las Cruces in the mid 1970s. The airport remains in use as a general aviation facility with several based aircraft.

In popular culture

Actress

Jodie Foster Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster (born November 19, 1962) is an American actress and filmmaker. Foster started her career as a child actor before establishing herself as leading actress in film. She has received List of awards and nominations re ...

stayed in Socorro while filming the movie '' Contact'' (1997) at the

fifty miles west of the city. Based on the map that was faxed to Jodie Foster's character (Dr. Eleanor Arroway) in the film, the Socorro airport was also the location of meeting between Dr. Arroway and S.R. Hadden. '' 12 Strong'' (2018) includes several scenes set in Afghanistan that were recorded in the Socorro area, including several days of filming at M Mountain within the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center's bomb range. Fifty extras from Socorro and surrounding areas appeared in several scenes in the film. Filming also took place at White Sands National Monument and

Fort Bliss Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Established in 1848, the fort was renamed in 1854 to honor William Wallace Smith Bliss, Bvt.Lieut.Colonel William W.S. Bliss (1815–1853 ...

. During this time, most of the production crew and actors on the film (made with the working title ''Horse Soldiers'') stayed at hotels in Socorro and ate at local restaurants.

Chris Hemsworth Christopher Hemsworth (born 11 August 1983) is an Australian actor. Born and raised in Melbourne, Victoria, and Bulman, Northern Territory, he rose to prominence playing Kim Hyde in the Australian television series ''Home and Away'' (2004� ...

was spotted at the Socorro Springs restaurant and

's gym.

Notable people

* Elfego Baca (1865–1945), lawman, lawyer, and politician * Jeff Bhasker, record producer and musician * Holm O. Bursum (1867–1953), politician *

Conrad Hilton Conrad Nicholson Hilton (December 25, 1887 – January 3, 1979) was an American hotel magnate and politician who founded the Hilton Hotels chain. From 1912 to 1916, Hilton was a Republican representative in the first New Mexico Legislature ...

(1887–1979), founder of the Hilton Hotels chain *

Robert Fortune Sanchez Robert Fortune Sanchez (20 March 1934 – 20 January 2012) was the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the United States. Biography Born in Socorro, New Mexico, he was the son of Julius Caesar Sanchez a ...

(1938–2012), Roman Catholic archbishop * Jan Thomas, (1958-) Children's writer and illustrator.

References

Bibliography

* ''Socorro "Saucer" in a Pentagon Pantry'', Ray Stanford, author. Blueapple Books, 1976. * ''X Descending'', Christian Lambright, author. X Desk Publishing, 2012. pp. 269–274. * ''The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial'',

Jerome Clark Jerome Clark (born November 27, 1946)"Jerome Clark". ''Contemporary Authors Online''. June 12, 2002. Retrieved on April 11, 2012. is an American writer, specializing in unidentified flying objects and other paranormal subjects. He has appeared ...

, author. Visible Ink Press, 1998. pp. 545–558.

External links

* {{Authority control Cities in Socorro County, New Mexico Cities in New Mexico County seats in New Mexico