Best known as the site of an alleged flying saucer crash in 1947 and the
Roswell Incident, Roswell began as a humble trading post in the late
1860s along the Goodnight-Loving Cattle Trail and eventually grew into a
metropolis of southeastern New Mexico. Once a cow town and home to
famous Western figures such as John Chisum, Pat Garrett, and Capt.
Joseph C. Lea, Roswell is also the birthplace of the New Mexico Military
Institute, the testing grounds for Robert H. Goddard's rockets in the
1930s, and the site of the Roswell Army Airfield and a German POW camp
in the 1940s. Today Roswell is a popular tourist destination and home to
more than 50,000 residents.