Roswell

Robert Goddard came for open sky and the money to use it. With Guggenheim backing he moved his rocket work from Massachusetts to Roswell in the summer of 1930, and of the thirty-five rockets he launched between 1926 and 1941, thirty-one went up here. His work drew the interest of Charles Lindbergh. The Roswell Museum keeps a reconstruction of his workshop, with a replica rocket and launch tower outside, and the city's high school carries his name.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Roswell Population 50,000 - Elevation 3,612 Roswell was a watering place for the Pecos Valley cattle drives of the 1870s and 1880s. It was in- corporated in 1891 and is seat of Chaves County, named for Col. J. Francisco Chaves, Civil War soldier and delegate to the U.S. Congress from the Territory of New Mexico. In the 1930s, Dr. Robert Goddard conducted experiments in liquid fuel rocket flights here.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• International UFO Museum and Research Center — 5.9 mi
  A 1930s movie theater on Roswell's Main Street turned into a museum by two men who had been part of the 1947 story, one of them the officer who announced the flying disc.
• Bottomless Lakes State Park — 16 mi
  Nine sinkhole lakes under red bluffs east of Roswell, named by vaqueros whose ropes never touched bottom, and set aside in 1933 as New Mexico's first state park.

More markers nearby

• Roswell Pioneer Plaza — 5.7 mi
• Roswell — 6.4 mi
• Roswell — 8.6 mi
• Walker Air Force Base — 10 mi