The D. H. Lawrence Ranch Reopens–and the World Takes Note!
August 4, 2014
The D. H. Lawrence Ranch Reopens–and the World Takes Note!
The Homesteader’s Cabin at the D. H. Lawrence Ranch photo by Teddy D. Warner
On July 31st, I received similar e-mail messages from three different friends–Katherine Toy Miller, Bill Haller, and Feroza Jussawalla. These friends wrote to alert me to an article in the New York Times entitled, “Circle of Artists in Taos.” Tucked into the “Art and Design” section of the Times, the article begins this way:
The only property owned by the British novelist D. H. Lawrence, which he called Kiowa Ranch, near Taos, N.M., reopened to the public in early July after years of being a shuttered health hazard.
Interested readers will find the complete article is available here. (Note that you’ll have to first scroll past–or read if you so desire–the article on delicate chinese albums in order to find the piece that references the Ranch.)
But, the article in the Times is not the first or the last word on the reopening of the Ranch.
A quick search on Google took me to several others. The most recent appears today in the Los Alamos Daily Post. West Texas television stations carried the news as well, but for me, anyway, the most startling fact is this one. On July 31st, three days ago, the Albuquerque Journal carried a short article on the reopening–nothing much, no more than 120 words or so. But get this: In the three days since the article appeared, 43,367 people have “liked” the article on Facebook.
Over 43,000 readers of the Albuquerque Journal have signaled the article’s importance by “liking” it. In just three days!
Those of us who care about the property and who live in the area already know that the credit for the reopening goes to the Taos Community Foundation and the D. H. Lawrence Ranch Alliance. The Alliance is funding the docent program which will train volunteers to offer tours of the property. This class is being offered through UNM Taos, and potential docents can find more information here.
I’ll be writing more about the D. H. Lawrence Ranch in coming weeks. For now, I’ll simply thank the Taos Community Foundation and all those in Taos who made the reopening possible. Bravo!
Signage – photo Teddy D. Warner
The original blog can be found on Sharon Oard Warner’s website: SharonOardWarner.com
