Susan Parks (1895-1981)

Luna County · Intersection of NM Highway 9 and NM Highway 11 -- Columbus · location approximate

Susan “Susie” Parks operated the telephone switchboard in 1916. She and her husband, Garnet, owned and published the Columbus Courier newspaper and lived in back of the office on Broadway Street. Susie, alone with her infant daughter, Gwen, awoke in the early morning of March 9 to gunshots and shouts of, “Viva Villa!” Pancho Villa’s army was raiding the village. Susie bravely withstood the gunfire, using her switchboard to summon National Guard troops from Deming. Susie and Gwen were wounded by glass and fragments of bullets, but both survived the attack.

The Historic Preservation Division notes that its marker spreadsheet may be out of date and in places inaccurate, and that it does not know where every marker now stands. These pages carry the spreadsheet’s record; a marker listed here may have moved or may no longer stand. the program’s page ↗

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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Marker data: Official Scenic Historic Markers program, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, Department of Cultural AffairsMarker texts come from the Division’s published marker spreadsheet, reproduced with the Division’s written permission. Where that spreadsheet records a coordinate, the pin is the Division’s own; where it records only a highway and mile marker, an address, a junction or a named place, or where its coordinate contradicts its own highway, mile and county, the pin is ours, resolved on public road and place data and marked approximate.

More markers nearby

Pancho Villa’s Raid and Pancho Villa State Parkunder 1 mi
Pancho Villa State Parkunder 1 mi
Deming32 mi
Cathay Williams (ca. 1850 – Unknown)36 mi