We´re excited to welcome our newest contributor, Brandon Morgan, to the blog. Today, he writes a great piece on the historical memory and ceremony. This post originally appeared in the blog, The Mexican Revolution: Memory, Culture, and History. -ed
Speakers and dignitaries assembled as the Villa Raid memorial got underway in Columbus on March 9, 1916.
Slowly and surely people arrived at the crossroads of New Mexico 9 and 11 where the old El Paso and Southwestern rail station stands. Today, the old depot houses artifacts and memorabilia from the turn of the twentieth century. Most specifically, it contains relics that gained significance on the early morning of March 9, 1916, when General Francisco “Pancho” Villa led about 480 men across the international boundary three miles
southwest of town.
One hundred years later, behind the historic train station, restored over the past few decades through the efforts of the Columbus Historical Society (CHS), a slight, cool breeze flapped the edges of the American flags draped across the replica of General Pershing’s review stand and the desert sun grew warmer. I arrived just as the CHS memorial ceremony to mark the centennial of Villa’s raid got underway. Like most of the other 150 or so attendees, I had traveled hundreds of miles to participate in the ceremony to honor the memory of the eighteen Americans who were killed during the course of the attack. Only a handful of the participants in the memorial hailed from Columbus. Continue reading →
