Susan Parks

Susie Parks was nineteen that night and five months pregnant, alone with her fifteen-month-old daughter while her husband was away. The switchboard was in the newspaper office at all only because a fire in January 1916 had burned Burton's telephone office. Clutching the baby, she made her way through the shooting to the front of the building and called Captain Brock's National Guard company at Deming. She had married Garnet Parks, then a soldier of the 12th Infantry at Columbus, in February 1914. Her switchboard is now in the Telephone Museum of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Susan Parks 1895-1981 Susan "Susie" Parks operated the telephone switchboard in 1916 She and her husband, Garnet, owned and published the Columbus Courier newspaper and lived in back of the office on Broadway Street. Susie, alone with her infant daughter, Gwen, awoke in the early morning of March 9 to gunshots and shouts of, "Viva Villa!" Pancho Villa's army was raiding the village. Susie bravely withstood the gunfire, using her switchboard to summon National Guard troops from Deming. Susie and Gwen were wounded by glass and fragments of bullets, but both survived the attack. 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

• Pancho Villa State Park — steps away
  The site of Camp Furlong at Columbus, named for the revolutionary whose raiders attacked the town in 1916, as a gesture of friendship toward Mexico.

More markers nearby

• First Aero Squadron Airfield — steps away
• Pancho Villa State Park — steps away
• Pancho Villa State Park — 0.2 mi
• Pancho Villa's Raid — 0.2 mi