December 2024 Bookshelf Notes ~ by Kathleen Blair.
Greetings to all from the Black Range Museum Bookshelf.
We are a great source for books on southwestern US history. Our interesting selection will feed anyone’s curiosity!
In our Gift Shop we carry about 100 titles! We emphasize books relevant to the Hillsboro Historical Society’s mission and on topics developed in our museum displays. You can also find books by local authors. Our many titles follow the people and events that have impacted our region including Native Americans, mining, ranching, local community development, significant places, and historical events, as well as natural history.
Find books on more current activities such as hiking and camping, field guides, a children’s section, and a few southwestern classics and fiction just for a good, thoughtful read! In these periodic notes, I will try to keep abreast as new titles are acquired and favorites revisited. Just a note – in order to keep prices down and books out of landfills, many of the books we offer are used, though still in good condition.
Our Highlighted Books this Month:
Embree (Sonny) Hale of Sierra County, New Mexico. Roebuck. 2021, S. D. Ed. A fascinating account, in his own words, of Embree (Sonny) Hale. Sonny was one of the most iconic characters in Hillsboro; he could usually be found in the General Store Café. The book reveals stories of his life as a miner in Sierra County and the Black Range. These accounts are originals, and this book captures his voice wonderfully.
The Place Names of New Mexico. 1998. R. Julyan. Have you wondered how places in New Mexico received their names? Our cultural landscape is diverse, it includes native American languages, Hispanic, and many European origins. Historical events and landscape features in the state also shape our Place Names — it is no wonder we have such a great crazy quilt of names. If you are curiose and want to wow your friends, this book is pretty extensive and very interesting!
Racial Frontiers: Africans, Chinese, and Mexicans in Western America 1848-1890. 2002. A. DeLeon. This book highlights the important roles minorities played in the development in the American West have long been overlooked by historians. You will find in reading that these people came for the economic and democratic oportunities they did not have in the places they came from. They were willing to work hard, sacrifice, learn new skills, and carry many of their cultural traditions with them.
Recolections of a Western Ranchman. 1928. W. French. British rancher Captain William French’s memoir of the New Mexico-Arizona borderlands in the 1880s-1890s. Interestingly, he shows an unusually balanced perception and storytelling wit in his stories of the these years with the events of Apache wars, Elfego Baca, Black Jack Ketchum, and Bear hunts!
Beginner’s Guides to Landscaping with Native Grasses and Beginner’s Guide to Planting Native Perennials of the Gila Region. ND. Gila Native Plants Society. Two small booklets published locally about planning and planting gardens with native species. These gardens will be beautiful and will also benefit pollinators plus be tolerant of local climate conditions.