Letters to the editor: On old country club clubhouse
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These letters published in the Oct. 2, 2022 print edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News.
Trost building warrants preservation
I read with concern your recent front page story. If Las Cruces had a building still standing from the early 1900s designed by famous American architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan or I. M. Pei destined for demolition, wouldn’t city leaders do everything in their power to protect it? No doubt.
The same respect is due Henry C. Trost. The city should do its utmost to work with commercial real estate interests looking to develop the old Las Cruces Country Club land and likely raze the former clubhouse designed by the Southwest’s premier early 20th century architectural firm of Trost & Trost.
Henry C. Trost is every bit as significant an architect as the aforementioned notables of America’s early days, and I contend even more significant when it comes to the hundreds of innovative architectural gems left standing in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. Trost was an early “green” architect. His “revival” style structures of the day took into account the Southwest’s arid environments, sun angles and prevailing winds, following the lead of the early Spanish and Native Americans.
Trost, who was the visionary behind the “horseshoe” design of the early NMSU and UTEP campuses and some of their most iconic buildings, left his cultural and historical stamp on early Las Cruces, his home base of El Paso, Socorro, Tucson, West Texas and other Southwest destinations. Just like our city’s 1908 John Miller and H. B. Holt homes and 1909 Wilfred Garrison House in Mesilla Park (1909) designed by Trost, the unique clubhouse should be preserved and repurposed in any new development to pay homage to the “Architect of the Southwest.”
Robert McCorkle, Las Cruces
In praise of new American citizens
When some 200 people emerged from their naturalization ceremony at the Las Cruces Convention Center recently, I did not expect to be so personally moved. I was with the League of Women Voters to help these new citizens with one of the rights and responsibilities they had just acquired: registering to vote.
The naturalization certificates they received that day completed a process involving years of permanent residency followed by much documentation; fees typically in excess of $700; study of U.S. history and government; and assessments of background, character and readiness. At this ceremony, taking the oath of allegiance to the United States officially makes them U.S. citizens.
No wonder the assemblage felt like a graduation ceremony, with bouquets and balloons and photos and well-wishers surrounding their own new citizen.
I stood with a nervous-looking man in his 70s while he carefully and quietly worked his way through the voter registration application — until he got to the question, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” He paused with an indescribable look on his face; I realized he wasn't nervous—he was overjoyed. I also realized he was alone in the crowd. Not any more. We beamed at each other through tears, and as I imagined the struggles, dreams, dangers and opportunities that culminated in this day for him, I thought about my own ancestors.
Anthropologists tell us that if we go back 20,000 years, we are all immigrants to America. We have all contributed our rich cultural traditions and our yearning for a better life. The new citizen before me, and all the citizens surrounding us, have the same history as I, separated only by a few generations and our specific circumstances.
Thanks to new citizens like these, our country ever leans toward becoming a more perfect union.
Mickey Reilly, Taos
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