Columns

Go into our “low price” Walmart and look at the cost of water — trucked in over long distances and hopefully of drinking water quality. Depending upon the label prettiness and package size, you will see the prices ranging from $1.10 to $6.90 per gallon.

Surely, Las Vegans can do better than that. What about city water?  Let us drag you though some details.

Where does city water come from? About 10 percent is piped from groundwater aquifers a few miles south of the city, and the remaining 90 percent comes from our local Gallinas River.

In 1492, Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) miscalculated his voyage to Asia and landed in what is now the island of modern day Haiti and Dominica Republic. He thought he was in the Indies of the East; hence he named the natives “Indians.”

Throughout history, groups of people have been named by their conquerors. It is for this reason I will use the term “Native peoples.”

I’m going to take a chance here, by publishing lyrics to a song. It’s written by Jim Terr, a Las Vegas native who lives mostly in Santa Fe scratching out a living as a singer-songwriter and making off-beat videos.

He’s also a big Vegas booster, as his work attests to (google him if you want to see for yourself). He gets much of his inspiration from right here at home.

Editor’s note: This the first of a series of articles intended to lead up to the unveiling of a community mural depicting the history of Las Vegas.

“American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”  — James Baldwin

The principal reason why we don’t repeat the terrible side of history is due to nationalism. You will find this to be true in the history books of most nations.