Sarah "Sally" J. Rooke

Even the accounts of her death disagree. Papers that week reported her body found twelve miles down the canyon, the operator's headpiece still in her hand; the Historic Women Initiative's own account has it recovered the following spring, eight miles downriver. The toll is given as seventeen, eighteen or nineteen, and the first wires said twenty to thirty. What stands is what the dimes bought: a granite boulder with a bronze tablet, unveiled at her grave in the Folsom cemetery on May 15, 1926, and signed by her fellow workers.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Sarah "Sally" J. Rooke (1843-1908) Heroine of the Dry Cimarron Flood On the night of August 27, 1908, while working as a telephone operator, Sally received a call that a wall of water was rushing down the Dry Cimarron River towards Folsom. She perished that stormy night at her switchboard warning of the danger, saving countless lives. Telephone operators across the country contributed 4,334 dimes to honor their colleague with a memorial. Official Scenic Historic Marker New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative The New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative was founded in 2005 by members of the New Mexico Women's Forum in a statewide effort to recognize women's contributions to New Mexico history on the state's Official Scenic Historic Markers. The Initiative ensures that women's diverse histories will be remembered and told, and will inspire and provide a guide for future generations. The 2006 Legislature funded the project.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Capulin Volcano National Monument — 5.2 mi
  A cinder cone you can drive to the top of, rising more than a thousand feet from the high plains east of Raton, whose lava broke out of its foot rather than its crater.

More markers nearby

• Sierra Grande — 6.8 mi
• Capulin Volcano National Monument — 7.6 mi
• Capulin Volcano National Monument — 8.3 mi
• Sierra Grande — 13 mi