400 Years in Santa Fe

Sometime in the next few years, Santa Fe will celebrate its 400th anniversary. The official period of celebration is 2008-2010, and the Anniversary Committee is hoping to attract a visit from the Spanish royal family. (Hey, Queen Elizabeth came to Jamestown, VA earlier this year, so why not?)

Part of the challenge is knowing exactly when to celebrate. According to an article in the October 12 Santa Fe New Mexican, "conflicting historical events that can be interpreted as the founding of the city put its inception somewhere between 1607-1610." (Lots more on this later.) Does anyone else think there's a problem with establishing a committee in 2007 that's has a potential starting celebration year of 2007? Just checking.... (As a basis of comparison, Jamestown started its committee in 1997, a full ten years before the celebration year, and managed to raise $140 million in public and private money to support these activities.)

A contest was held this summer to select a logo for the celebration. The committee has winnowed the list down to four finalists from 60 submissions. The one shown at the beginning of this post is my personal favorite, the one shown below has an egregious spelling error. (Couldn't they have asked the artist to fix this before publicizing it as a final entry?) Click here to see all finalists and cast your vote.