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Sunday, September 19, 1999
The 1900s have seen New Mexico grow from an out-of-the-way U.S. territory to a state known for science, sports, literature and the arts as well as for its unique cultural mix and brand of politics.
While many people have contributed in these areas, some have had a larger-than-usual impact.
Some are known far and wide: Smokey Bear, Georgia O'Keeffe, the Unser family. Others might not have as high a name recognition outside New Mexico, but leave a legacy that helped define the state.
And in most cases, their influence has been felt far beyond New Mexico's borders.
Here is one of the 20 individuals or families who helped make New Mexico what it is today.
Smokey Bear -- 1950-1976
A New Mexico native who spent less than a year of his long life on New Mexico soil, Smokey Bear did more to bring attention to forest fires -- and to sell an ecologically unsound fire-prevention method -- than any green-suited U.S. Forest Service bureaucrat.
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Smokey Bear
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It was 1950 and fire season in the Lincoln National Forest when a four-pound black bear cub was found, singed and scared, hugging a tree near Capitan. The cub was first dubbed "Hot Foot Teddy" but later named "Smokey Bear."
He was nursed back to health by a New Mexico Game and Fish executive and delivered to Washington, D.C., where a public relations campaign ("Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires) was designed around a roly-poly caricature of the real bear. So began 50 years of a forest fire-prevention strategy that ultimately proved unsound.
Smokey did not live to see the advent of deliberately set forest fires to thin brush and prevent hotter, more disastrous fires. He died at the National Zoo in 1976 and was buried in Capitan.
Compiled by Fritz Thompson, Leslie Linthicum, Bill Hume and Dennis Latta
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