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Sunday, September 19, 1999
Roswell: Cows to UFOs
Journal Staff Report
Roswell's history is rooted in the Wild West tradition, says historian Elvis E. Fleming.
"It's an old cattle town that has its roots in the history of the Old West, and some of that still shows through, although not as much as some of us would like it to."
The creation of the Roswell Army Air Field in 1940 was critical for the local economy and marked the beginning of the town's military period.
But Roswell's national legacy was written in July 1947. The so-called Roswell Incident was born when a Roswell rancher reported unusual debris on his land.
Officials from the air field issued a news release claiming to have recovered material from a flying saucer but retracted the claim almost immediately.
The incident has become something of a cause for UFO enthusiasts and drawn tourists who come to the town solely to see the alleged UFO-crash site.
Roswell's present industrial period began when the air field, which became Walker Air Force Base in 1948, was closed in 1967. The military installation is now the Roswell Industrial Air Center and houses the town's airport and several industrial factories.
But agriculture continues to be important to the Roswell economy, Fleming said, with such cash crops as cotton, alfalfa, chile and pecans along with wool, sheep and cattle.
2000