Tom Udall: “I am both delighted and honored to be able to share my thoughts with my colleagues on this occasion of the consideration…”

“I am both delighted and honored to be able to share my thoughts with my colleagues on this occasion of the consideration by this body of a bill that would designate the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro as a National Historic Trail. I also want to congratulate and applaud the efforts of the gentleman from the great State of Texas and from El Paso for his leadership on this issue. The Camino Real has already been designated as a Millennium Legacy Trail and has been the object of a Sisters Area agreement between two waystops on this historic trail, San Francisco del Oro located in Chihuahua, Mexico, and Socorro, New Mexico, situated in the heart of my home State. It has given rise to other sister cities agreements between many other communities in New Mexico and in Mexico. For those of my colleagues who may share my love of Southwest history, by the way, although portions of this historic trail were used in prehistoric times, it was first blazed as a complete trail by the expedition led by Juan de Onate in 1598 when he made his way to New Mexico to assure its settlement by the Spanish Crown.”