A Place of Thin Veil: Life and Death in Gallup, New Mexico

Robert “Bob” F. Rosebrough
 
Attorney and Author

Gallup, New Mexico is a place that is disproportionately and simultaneously wonderful and terrible.  A reservation border town with a remarkably diverse citizenry, Gallup started out as a railroading and coal mining town with an alcohol-soaked, violent history.  As an outsider who embraced the realities of this enigmatic town, Bob Rosebrough came to know many of Gallup’s larger-than-life figures personally and became fascinated with Gallup’s history.  He gives readers a rare and true insight into Gallup, its iconic stories, and it’s long-kept secrets, including:  the tragic story of the 1973 abduction of Gallup Mayor Emmett Garcia (a co-owner of a problem bar near the Navajo Nation) by a nineteen-year-old Indian activist, Larry Casuse, who died in the shootout that followed.  Other struggles were the violent coal mining strikes of the 1930’s and the trial of the Gallup 14. Uplifting stories include the World War II Navajo Code Talkers and the 205 mile “Walk to Santa Fe” seeking alcohol reform legislation.

Bob Rosebrough is a lawyer, outdoorsman, and author/co-author of four previous books.  Bob was born on his grandfather’s ranch near Jal, grew up in Farmington, attended college and law school in Albuquerque, and moved to Gallup in 1979 where he was elected mayor in 2003.  Tony Hillerman included Bob as a character by his real name, in the best-selling novel, The Fallen Man.  In the novel, Detective Joe Leaphorn, recruits Bob to retrieve a rock-climbing register from the summit of Shiprock by climbing down a wire ladder, suspended from a helicopter, to help solve the mystery of an earlier climber’s death.

Here is the link for the presentation:   https://bit.ly/3Ao8Jab