Restauranteur Fred Harvey's biggest challenge was not delivering fresh food to his far-flung outposts but finding reliable help, so he placed advertisements in the East and the Midwest for single "young women, 18 to 30 years of age, of good character, attractive and intelligent." These women became the famed…
In the 1920s automobile travel and the tourist impulse engaged the American public's imagination in a way that would open up the country and hark back to the statement made by Charles F. Lummis to “see America first.” To accommodate this technological and cultural movement, the U.S. Congress modified…
1907 Grandma was a tall woman, who would never hesitate to get on the floor to play with the glorious dollhouse she had at her house, or go out into any weather to push me and my sister in the backyard tire swing. As little girls, my grandma would…
Union County Courthouse; Court Street, Clayton, New Mexico; Union County The Union County Courthouse sits on a slight rise southwest of Clayton’s business district; its shiny silver dome visible for blocks. Constructed in 1909 to replace an earlier courthouse destroyed by a tornado, the Union County Courthouse designed to…
Las Vegas Plaza; Las Vegas New Mexico; On Monday, June 3, 1968, two counterculture bikers cruised into Las Vegas, New Mexico, joining a parade of high school bands, cowboys on horses and vintage cars that wrapped around the town’s old plaza. The bikers were actors Peter Fonda and Dennis…
Judge Seaman Field House; Deming, New Mexico Across the street from the 1917 Deming Armory (a three-story, red-brick government building with an imposing façade), the Judge Seaman Field House, a low, white residence with shingled roof and decorative gable windows is literally a building from another era. With initial…
Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail; By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint Between 1821 and 1880 the Santa Fe Trail linked the supply and transportation centers of Kansas and Missouri to consumer markets in Mexico and New Mexico. Along the approximately 800-mile wagon road between western Missouri…
By John P. Conron As the tracks crept ever nearer to the New Mexico border throughout the 1860s and 1870s, the conflicts among entrepreneurs and builders grew more influential in the affairs of New Mexico. The upright Boston capitalists, who backed the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Rail Road,…
Chihuahua Trail; Spanish Colonial Period; Trade, commerce, and culture in colonial New Mexico; By William H. Wroth The Chihuahua Trail is the major land route from New Mexico through the state of Chihuahua to points in central Mexico. It is the northernmost portion of the Camino Real which in…
San Augustine Pass “At last the pavement merged into a new four-lane highway that soon was lifting in a long, easy curve into San Augustine Pass. Sarah spared as much attention as she dared to the stone spires and cliffs that formed the Organ Mountains. There were breathtaking…
