Roswell

The name came from a man who never saw the place. Van C. Smith, a businessman from Omaha, set up a store and post office on the Rio Hondo around 1870, and in 1872 asked his correspondents to address his mail to Roswell, his father's first name. Roswell Smith was a lawyer in Lafayette, Indiana, and there is no record that he ever came here. Van Smith became the first postmaster in August 1873 and laid out a wide main street for the cattle herds moving through. This copy of the panel prints soldier as solder.

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 solder 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 — 2.8 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 — 11 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

• Walker Air Force Base — 1.7 mi
• Roswell Pioneer Plaza — 3.0 mi
• Roswell — 3.2 mi
• Roswell Prisoner of War Camp — 7.6 mi