In 1912, New Mexico gained statehood after having been denied it twice before by the Congress of the United States. During World War II, New Mexican soldiers suffered the greatest number of casualties, especially during the War in the Pacific. In the early 1940s, Los Alamos, New Mexico, became the site for the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. The first bomb was exploded on July 16, 1945, at Trinity Site, a location on Alamogordo Air Force Base.
Santa Rosa, the "City of Lakes," was settled in 1865 and is located 116 miles east of Albuquerque. It was named for a chapel built by Don Celso Baca, a prominent settler who dedicated it to St. Rose of Lima. Santa Rosa became the junction point of two important railroad systems, and railroad construction crews frequented the town regularly at the turn of the century. This activity declined as the network of highways begun in the 1920s was completed. Today, the city's greatest attractions are the numerous natural lakes in the vicinity, which are attended by interesting rock formations, trees, and shrubbery. The most picturesque is the "Blue Hole," a bell-shaped opening fed by a subterranean river. Locals believe that the lakes are fed by a common underground water source and that they are connected by subterranean channels.
