Special Collections Library

This 1905 postcard shows Albuquerque's Railroad Avenue - renamed Central Avenue in 1907 - looking west from First Street. It's one of about 700 postcards depicting Albuquerque through the years on display at the Special Collections Library in Downtown.

Special Collections Library

This postcard - probably from the 1940s - shows a notorious Downtown drinking spot, the A&P Bar at 911 South Second St. The A&P boasted that its 85-foot bar was the longest in the Southwest.

Special Collections Library

This 1950s postcard shows the intersection of Central Avenue and Girard and Monte Vista boulevards Northwest. The caption on the back boasts that "This is said to be the busiest intersection in the nation on a per capita basis."

Special Collections Library

This 1937 postcard is one of about 700 showing Albuquerque's past on display at the Special Collections Library in Downtown.

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As a child, Nancy Tucker fell in love with Albuquerque the moment she saw the Sandia Mountains.

When her family was moved from their Northeast Heights home to another military town, she vowed to return one day.

In the end, that wasn't easy. Tucker, now 60, didn't relocate here until after she retired in 2004.

To satisfy her desire for all things Albuquerque in her absence, Tucker turned to eBay, where she began to collect Albuquerque memorabilia including postcards. She bought her first Albuquerque postcard - of a sanitarium - online for $5.

"I collected postcards as a girl and when I got out of college," Tucker said. "But this time I was off to the races. I do it all because I love Albuquerque, and I hate to see these things pass by and maybe get destroyed if they are not bought."

Beyond simply saving the postcards, Tucker's hobby has contributed to an exhibition of about 700 postcards showing Albuquerque through the years. It's on display through March 24 at the Special Collections Library on Central Avenue at Edith Boulevard Northeast.

Many of the miniature tidbits of Albuquerque history are also as close as the nearest Internet connection, said Joe Sabatini, the library's manager. The online display began as an academic project, but worked well enough to go up on the city's Web site, Sabatini said.

The exhibit in the library includes postcards from different eras depicting Route 66 to Downtown, Old Town - even hospitals and sanitariums.

The postcards were hand-mounted onto 30 placards, complete with captions explaining the picture and where the postcard is believed to have originated. Some even include the message that was written on the postcard when it was mailed.

The kaleidoscope of postcards offers glimpses into the past and aims to teach onlookers something they might not know about the place they call home, Tucker said.

The exhibit was shown together for just one day as part of the city's tricentennial celebration. The placards were then sent one at a time to libraries around the city. The tour lasted from April 2005 until mid-December 2006.

Continued curiosity from the public prompted Sabatini to bring the whole exhibit back for another run, he said.

"It's like bite-sized pieces of Albuquerque history," he said. "For people who lived during these periods, they will see things that aren't here anymore. It's a picture from their youth. For the younger people, they will see what the place used to be like before they got here and how it came to be what it is today," he said.

Sabatini credits the exhibit's success to a few key contributors like Tucker and her New Mexico Postcard Club, some of whom she met online.

Tucker said she logged about 350 volunteer hours while tracking down some of the rare and one-of-a-kind postcards in the show.

Another supporter was Friends of the Library, a nonprofit organization that aims to educate the public on the different services libraries to provide to their communities, said Brian Morris, board president.

"All of the projects we do are designed to get people into the library and make them realize that their libraries are there for a multitude of reasons," he said.

"It's a place where we learn about our history and pass it on to the next generation."

The group picked up the tab to color copy the postcards for use in the exhibit.

Many of the featured postcards were hard to come by because they were sent out of state. Tucker donates postcards and other city memorabilia to the library and the museum, but she said hardly anyone gave their originals for the exhibit.

"They would lend them to me because they knew me. I made color copies and gave them back," she said. "I knew them all because I was bidding against them on eBay."