City on the Edge Podcast

100 years ago, an itinerant ox rancher named Mike Smith discovered the Sandia mountains and decided to make a podcast about them. Today, we celebrate that great day with a very self-indulgent ramble session of an episode. We talk City on the Edge history, highs and lows, the Simpsons and whatever else comes to mind over the course of an hour and 40 minutes.

Mike takes us on a deep dive into the history, meaning and mystery of his street in the suburbs.

A two time gold rusher, automobile booster and, well, a racist, DKB Sellers was a man with many facets even before he founded one of the most desirable neighborhoods in modern Albuquerque.

RIP Mannie's. 1965-2020. And RIP to the building, 1940ish-2023.We also talk about the Colour Fence and Leisure Bowl.

Our far-flung correspondent Nora Hickey finds a surprising connection to Albuquerque in her new town: a Madonna of the Trail statue.

Hey, we've come back after a long break! And frankly, we need a refreshing drink of water, preferably from a beautiful, Giardia-free mountain spring. Fortunately, Mike knows where to find them.

From 19th century botanists to elite WWII soldiers, the history of the Sandia Tram takes us to some surprising places.

Some people like tacos. I don't get it. Some people like cults. I'm still not sure why. Some people... well, hardly anybody likes starvation. I get that.

Inspired by the Pride Parade last weekend, Ty looks into the beginnings of the Albuquerque LGBTQ rights movement.

Before the conquistador Juan de Oñate established the first Spanish colonies in New Mexico, another Spaniard attempted to do so. Why did Gaspar Castaño de Sosa fail? And why isn't he remembered today?

In 1933, an Iowa boy left his home and family to seek out his pen pal, who lived at the Pueblo of Santo Domingo.

89. In the depths of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps to both provide relief jobs to unemployed men and improve the nation's historic and natural resources. The men of Camp F8N came from all over the country to live and work in our own Sandia Mountains, and their legacy remains visible today.

An interview with Professor John Gram, author of "Education at the Edge of Empire: Negotiating Pueblo Identity in New Mexico's Indian Boarding Schools.

After talking about his less-savory side, we return to Elfego Baca, this time to tell of his legendary gunfight against a legion of drunken Texans.

A look at some of the more colorful characters from Albuquerque's history, including Elfego Baca, and an interview with local author and ghost hunter (!) Cody Polston

About a half-houri west of Los Lunas, an inscribed stone rests on the side of Hidden Mountain. Could it be evidence that New Mexico was visited by Hebraic tribes in Old Testament times? No. The answer is no.

On February 26, 1986, New Mexico state investigators discovered 150 human skulls in a “hand dug cave” beneath a home in Albuquerque's North East heights.

A foul-mouthed furniture salesman buys a gold mine in New Mexico. Next thing you know, law enforcement officials are bribed, a man dies under suspicious circumstances and two people mysteriously disappear.

Man, the 80s and 90s were weird. Satan seemed to be lurking behind every pop culture controversy, and everybody's were burning their heavy metal records and D&D books. And Albuquerque wasn't immune to the hysteria.

New Mexico Cult Season continues with Mike Smith's report on the Aggressive Christianity Missionary Training Corps, a group with a military take on the always-impending End of the World.

On our first episode of Cult Season 2021, Nora tells us the strange story of New Mexico's druids. .

A bit of a departure from our normal, historical fare, this episode focuses on cohost Mike Smith's tenure at the scandal plagued (and ultimately shuttered) Brown Mackie for-profit college.

Once upon a time, there was a fast food restaurant with a really weird name.

In 1947, the villainous New Mexico Highway Department knocked a 3 million year old landmark and Route 66 icon off of its pedestal. 73 years later, we're upset about it!

We all have bad days, but most of the time they don't involve nuclear weapons. Our guest Roland Pentilla tells about the day Albuquerque came awfully close to nuclear Armageddon, as well as other military aircraft accidents that have been mostly forgotten. This is a long one, but jam packed with fascinating information!

Okay, so we won't be able to show you the interior of this infamous UNM landmark, but we'll delve into its origins, the time it was set on fire 4 times in a single year, and how it served as the home base for a racist reign of terror in the 1960s.

In this first part of our new series, we look back to different protests and periods of activism in Albuquerque's past. This episode features the anti-fascism demonstrations of the 30s and the, uh... anti-gray hat movement at UNM?

I was lucky enough to have a chance to chat with local journalist and author Ashley M. Biggers about her new book, Secret Albuquerque, which details 90 "weird, wonderful and obscure" Albuquerque sites and stories.

We’ve never covered the Westside mass grave in detail at City on the Edge, mainly out of a desire to give it the time and attention it deserves and to do so in a way that doesn’t minimize the victims. In February of this year, however, local journalist Tierna Unruh-Enos launched The Mesa podcast, a series that focuses on the West Side crime site in a way that we never could, with interviews and investigations featuring family members of the victims, police officers who worked on (and are still working on) the case, as well as Tierna’s own experiences as a member of the media during in the time period covering the mass grave’s discovery. I recently spoke to Tierna about the podcast, as well as what drew her to covering the case in the first place, and how her investigations have changed her view of Albuquerque’s most notorious crime scene.

Hey! It's a global pandemic! City on the Edge checks in.

Well, we're all stuck inside due to coronavirus, so why not take a look back at the 1918 flu and how it affected Albuquerque and New Mexico?

We take a trip down one of the most beautiful and historic roads near Albuquerque.

One of the most well-preserved ghost towns near Albuquerque is the coal-mining village of Hagan.

One of the most iconic images of the American west is the ghost town, and New Mexico has more than it's fair share of these collections of abandoned buildings and dusty reminders of lives long gone. If you do any research on New Mexico ghost towns, you're bound to find yourself checking out the City of Dust blog (at cityofdust.blogspot.com)--and facebook page, where explorer and author John Mulhouse chronicles his many expeditions to these mostly forgotten sites. I spoke with John by phone recently, and delved into where his love for ghost towns comes from, strange encounters he's had while exploring them, and his upcoming book, Abandoned New Mexico: Ghost Towns, Endangered Architecture and Hidden History, due to be released in June of this year.

Nora is leaving! Why? Because of football, dammit. So we hang out with her for a while and reminiscence about her favorite episodes and how much we're going to miss her. :( :( :(

New Mexico is filled with places you can't go. Our pal, Regis Lacher, talks about a few of them.

It's a very merry City on the Edgemas as we talk about luminarias and whether or not they are actually farolitos. Also, the Bugg Lights and biscochitos (which ARE interesting, MIKE.)

In an Anytown, USA/City on the Edge mashup, we check out Cedar Crest New Mexico with Ty Bannerman, Courtney FitzGerald and Mike Smith.

CoE talks to storyteller Joe Hayes, whose retelling of New Mexico legends and folktales has delighted audiences for nearly four decades.

We travel back in time to the Albuquerque of 110 years ago and find a world of mail scams, abortion pills and quack treatment for hemorrhoids.

Visible from Albuquerque, but a world away, Sierra Ladrones is home to the ghosts of bandits, mysterious spirits and rumors of buried treasure.

Hey, this episode is available on our brand new youtube channel at bit.ly/cityontheedge! We chat with chile historian and author Dave DeWitt about the history and biology of green chile. Also, we find out a bit about Home Movie Day from our friends at Modern Albuquerque and Basement Films.

We talk to Albuquerque the Magazine assistant editor Taylor Hood about his research into various historic homes in Albuquerque, from a bed & breakfast where spies passed secrets to the Soviet government, to a home built for the New Mexico governor when residents were sure that Albuquerque would be the state capital. We also delve into what happens when a persistent legend is false, but gets printed as fact.

We follow the lives of several women who traveled on El Camino Real, the royal road that ran from Mexico City to Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico.

Did infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone spend time in the mountains of New Mexico? If he did, was he "hiding out?" We look into the persistent legends and try to find the truth.

We chat with Albuquerque poet Hakim Bellamy and photographer Justin Thor Simenson about their new book, We Are Neighbors, which explores an Albuquerque neighborhood through image and fiction.

We talk about the most famous WWII correspondent you've never heard of: Ernie Pyle. A beloved journalist who wrote about America's everyday stories before he went to war, Ernie Pyle's fame skyrocketed when he began covering the Western Front. So what's the Albuquerque connection? Listen and find out!

We talk to poet and artist Amaris Ketcham about her interactive map of Albuquerque's literary landscape (poeticroutes.com).

This episode, we look into Skyline Drive, an almost-was paved road that would have run down the face of Sandia if it hadn’t been stopped by environmentalists.

CoE talks to New Mexico Political Report Environmental Correspondent Laura Paskus about the water issues affecting our city and state.

It's Halloween, so we visit some Albuquerque graveyards and tell stories from cemeteries. Spooky!