{"id":22908,"date":"2015-11-24T13:52:58","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T20:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/krtnradio.com\/?p=22908"},"modified":"2015-11-24T14:02:36","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T21:02:36","slug":"raton-had-role-in-licensing-territorys-horseless-carriages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/2015\/11\/24\/raton-had-role-in-licensing-territorys-horseless-carriages\/","title":{"rendered":"Raton had role in licensing territory’s horseless carriages"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bill Johnston
\"WJ<\/a>RATON \u2014 Though America\u2019s love affair with the automobile originated and grew most rapidly in the country\u2019s major population centers, New Mexicans were far from passive onlookers. \u00a0Horseless carriages were already trickling into the Territory by the turn of the twentieth century and within a decade there were enough of them puttering around the larger towns to cause some Territorial politicos to think that they needed to be licensed and regulated. \u00a0This had already been done in other states, with New York leading the charge way back in 1901.
It wasn\u2019t the Territorial Legislature that was the first to act in New Mexico, however. \u00a0Those top dog politicians met only once every two years, and even then for a session that lasted just a few months. \u00a0Rather, it was the city fathers in several New Mexico towns who concluded that these useful new horseless buggies should require licenses. \u00a0Over the years, there have been competing claims as to which town jumped on the bandwagon first.
An article in the December 1934 issue of New Mexico Magazine, p. 15, relates a story by Raton resident W.A. Chip Chapman that he was the holder of New Mexico\u2019s first license plate. \u00a0Chapman\u2019s picture, along with photos of the license plate and one of his registration certificates, accompany the story. \u00a0The tag shown is a leather plate with aluminum numerals. \u00a0The pictured registration receipt shows that the governing ordinance was No. 169, and that the license number was No. 100R. \u00a0His claim was that Raton was the first local New Mexico jurisdiction to license automobiles, that he got the first license, and therefore he had the first New Mexico license plate. \u00a0But did he?
The Raton Daily Range for February 1, 1911, reported that ordinance No. 169 requiring the licensing of automobiles and motorcycles had been passed the previous evening, i.e., January 31, and publication of the ordinance took place in the February 1 and February 2 editions of the Daily Range. \u00a0The ordinance states that it was to become effective five days after its passage and publication, which would have made it effective on February 7, 1911.
But it turns out that the city councils of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Vegas had all enacted and put into effect motor vehicle licensing ordinances the year before, in 1910. \u00a0And all three of them required the display of license plates beginning in that year. \u00a0Moreover, the Raton ordinance is a verbatim copy of the older Albuquerque ordinance, with only the paragraph numbering and the name of the town changed.
Consequently, there were many Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Vegas municipal plates in use long before Raton even passed its ordinance. \u00a0But even though Chapman apparently bamboozled the editorial staff of New Mexico Magazine with his story, his license plate is of enormous historical importance, given that it was one of no more than about three hundred license plates issued during the Territorial era. \u00a0After the 1934 story was published, Chapman\u2019s tag faded into obscurity, leaving one to wonder what became of it.
Eva Mae Sproule was Raton\u2019s longest serving City Clerk, holding the office without interruption for more than four decades, from May 1958 until her retirement in March 1999. \u00a0A few months after she died in December 2011 at the age of 84, some of her effects were donated to the Raton Museum. \u00a0There, in a large envelope, was Chapman\u2019s license plate, along with the registration card that had been pictured in the 1934 magazine article. \u00a0A photo of this recovered treasure appears with this article, and the plate itself now resides in the Raton Museum.
Shortly after New Mexico achieved statehood in 1912, the first state legislature passed an automobile licensing law which mandated all cars in the state be registered with and obtain a state license plate from the Secretary of State. \u00a0The four cities which had been licensing autos on a municipal basis were permitted to continue doing so only until March 15, 1913, bringing Raton\u2019s plates to an end after barely two years of use. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
For several years the Chapman tag was the only territorial license plate known to survive from any city, but earlier this year another Raton municipal plate\u2014 identical to Chapmans except for the number\u2014 surfaced in a Raton antique shop. \u00a0The New Mexico Transportation History Project (NMTHP) raised the sixteen thousand dollars required to purchase the plate for its collections. \u00a0
This exceptionally rare artifact, bearing the number 109R, would have been issued in early February 1911, within days\u2013 or perhaps even hours\u2013 of Chapman\u2019s plate. \u00a0Unlike Chapman\u2019s, however, the registration card was not with it, and as the registration records no longer exist within the city\u2019s records the original owner has not been identified.
Although the licensing ordinances of the other three cities tell us what their license plates looked like, not a single one of those is known to survive today. \u00a0The two Raton tags, therefore, hold their place in history as the oldest surviving New Mexico license plates.
Bill Johnston, a writer for over fifty years, is the author of the book Early New Mexico License Plates. \u00a0
Do you have a question about an old New Mexico license plate? \u00a0Contact the author via e-mail at\u00a0NMhistory@totacc.com<\/a>\u00a0or by regular mail at NMTHP, P.O. Box 1, Organ, NM \u00a088052-0001.<\/p>\n

\"Raton<\/a>
Raton plate 109R, found recently in a Raton antique shop. As the registration card was not with it, the original owner has yet to be identified.
Bill Johnston photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Registration<\/a>
Registration card 100R for Chapmans automobile, which was an electric car of unspecified make. (The card seen here is from a later renewal.) Joanna Wood Ray photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bill JohnstonRATON \u2014 Though America\u2019s love affair with the automobile originated and grew most rapidly in the country\u2019s major population centers, New Mexicans were far from passive onlookers. \u00a0Horseless carriages were already trickling into the Territory by the turn of the twentieth century and within a decade there were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry","rows-excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}