New Mexico‘s small towns each carry a different angle on the Southwest. Truth or Consequences took its name from a 1950 radio show. Los Alamos built the first atomic weapons during the Manhattan Project. Roswell remembers a 1947 UFO incident. The eleven stops below stretch across the state with their own anchors, between Spanish-grant towns along the Rio Grande and ranching outposts on the Comanche plains.
Truth Or Consequences
Truth or Consequences shed its original name of Hot Springs in March 1950 after radio host Ralph Edwards offered to broadcast his show from any town that adopted the title. The town agreed, and Edwards returned every year for the rest of his life for the annual Fiesta. Around a dozen commercial bathhouses sit within walking distance of downtown, drawing on the same geothermal aquifer that ran the original spa economy from the 1880s forward. Elephant Butte Lake State Park sits five miles north for fishing, boating, and the largest reservoir in the state. The Geronimo Springs Museum runs the local history through the era of the Apache Wars, mining, and the Edwards broadcasts.