University Library News Release
Date: November 15, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (505) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
NMSU Library Calendar is a Great Holiday Gift
The New Mexico State University Library's Rio Grande Historical Collections is offering its annual calendar for sale. The 2007 calendar, which makes a great holiday gift, is entitled "Herbert Yeo in New Mexico, 1909-1915." Copies can be purchased for $5 each at the second floor administrative offices at Zuhl Library or the fourth floor Archives research room at Branson Library.
The calendar features photographs made by Herbert W. Yeo between 1909 and 1915. An engineer from Ohio, in 1908 Yeo moved to Las Cruces, where he was employed by the United States Reclamation Service. Between 1908 and 1917 he worked on the Rio Grande Project and was involved in the surveying and construction of the Elephant Butte Dam.
The photographs from Yeo's early years in New Mexico demonstrate a fascination with the local cultures and include images of adobe churches, old Spanish/Mexican villages, traditional customs and Native Americans. Yeo served as Doņa Ana County surveyor during the 1920s, then as State Engineer of New Mexico from 1927 to 1931. He died in 1954 at the Fort Bayard Veterans' Hospital.
In 2006 the New Mexico State University Library's Archives and Special Collections Department acquired about 1,500 of Herbert Yeo's original negatives, made between 1909 and 1940, that had been stored at the offices of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District in Las Cruces. The negatives reflect Yeo's professional work and his personal interest in New Mexico history and culture.
For more information, please contact Connie Loyd, the NMSU Library's Development Officer, at (505) 646-3642 or the NMSU Library Administration at (505) 646-1508.
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