Albuquerque Facts
Fact 1: Albuquerque was a late bloomer among New Mexico's cities. While Santa Fe grew large as the area's capital and end of the Santa Fe Trail, Albuquerque remained a small town until the latter part of the 19th century and the arrival of the railroad.
Fact 2: The Rio Grande cuts through Albuquerque as it makes its way on an 800-mile journey from the mountains of Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. Nine out of every ten state residents live in the valleys of this river, which actually has two names. To the Mexicans, it's the Rio Bravo.
Fact 3: Get your kicks on Route 66. Albuquerque became part of the American love affair with the automobile and open highway when Route 66 was extended through town in 1926. The famed road linked Chicago with southern California and was dotted along the way with truck stops, neon signs, roadside motels and greasy-spoon diners.
Fact 4: Signs of early man in North America are found throughout the mountains overlooking Albuquerque. More than 17,000 prehistoric rock drawings, known as petroglyphs, record the thoughts of Native American hunters who traversed the area in the centuries before Columbus.
Fact 5: The man who gave the world a view of war from the eyes of the privates in the trenches is remembered in a small Albuquerque museum. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ernie Pyle called Albuquerque home, and his little white house with a picket fence is now a branch library, filled with memorabilia from his days covering World War.
Fact 6: The famed Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe rail line never stopped in its New Mexico namesake. The railroad that was put to music in Judy Garland's 1946 movie "The Harvey Girls," instead ran to Albuquerque, with only a tiny spur for freight cars making its way to Santa Fe.
Fact 7: This is one museum that's enough to make your skin crawl. Albuquerque is home to the American International Rattlesnake Museum. The museum features rattlers from across the Americas as well as a gift shop that offers rattlesnake curios to give to that special someone back home.
Fact 8: Built in 1927 as a movie house and a theater for vaudeville shows, Albuquerque's Pueblo-Deco style KiMo theater today hosts concerts and plays year-round. Inside, check out the air vents painted to look like Navajo rugs, and the door handles shaped like Indian dolls.
Fact 9: The jagged outcroppings that form Sandia Peak outside Albuquerque are the result of geological forces in which the earth's crust was cracked and pushed upward at a sharp angle. The result is a place for spectacular views. Take the world's longest aerial tramway ride to the top of the 10,400-foot-high peak.
Fact 10: Amazon.com founder, Jeff Bezos, was born in Albuquerque. It was in 1994 that the very successful businessman with the explosive laugh, along with his wife, packed up all of their belongings, drove to Seattle and set up the world's largest bookstore in their garage.
