THE SURPRISES OF NEW MEXICO
"_But my minstrel knows and tells
The counsel of the gods,
Knows of Holy Book the spells,
Knows the law of Night and Day,_
* * * * *
_What sea and land discoursing say
In sidereal years._"
EMERSON
New Mexico is the scene of surprises. Traditionally supposed to be
a country that is as remote as possible from the accepted canons of
polite society; that is also an arid waste whose temperature exceeds
the limits of any well-regulated thermometer,--it reveals itself
instead as a region whose temperature is most delightful, whose
coloring of sky and atmosphere is often indescribably beautiful, and
whose inhabitants include their fair proportion of those who represent
the best culture and intelligence of our country. New Mexico has a
mixed population. To a hundred and sixty thousand Americans there are a
hundred and twenty-five thousand of Spanish or Mexican descent; a few
hundred Chinese and Japanese, and some thirteen thousand Indians, who
are, however, peaceful and industrious, and a proportion of whom
have been educated in the Government schools for the Indians.
[Illustration: ACOMA, NEW MEXICO]
The altitude of New Mexico seldom falls to less than five thousand
feet, so that the air is cool and exhilarating. The rock formations
partake of the same rich hue that characterizes those in Colorado and
in Arizona, and as the soil is rich there is a continual play of color.
The scenery is one changeful, picturesque panorama of mountains, rock,
or walled cañons, vast mesas, uncanny buttes, and lava fields left by
some vanished volcanic fires. The ancient Indian pueblos are still
largely inhabited, and strange ruins of unknown civilizations add
their atmosphere of mystery. The mouldering remains of the old Pecos
church and the strange communistic dwellings in the old Pueblo de Taos;
the ruins of the fortress and the seven circular mounds, which were
the council-chambers and halls for mystic rites of the prehistoric
civilization; and the fabled site of the ancient Aztec city where
tradition says Montezuma was born,--all contribute to a unique interest
in this "land of the turquoise sky," as New Mexico is called.
Acoma, the ancient pueblo perched on a perpendicular precipice four
hundred feet high, with its terraced dwellings of adobe, its gigantic
church, its reservoir cut out of solid rock, and its inhabitants with
their strange customs, is fairly accessible to the traveller from
Albuquerque by a drive of some twenty miles. Mr. Lummis calls it "the
most wonderful pueblo," and "the most remarkable city in the world,"
as compared, of course, with other pueblos and ruined cities. Acoma has
a present population of some four hundred Indians, and its romantic
beauty of location is unparalleled. There are scientists who incline
to believe that the original Acoma was built on the top of the _Mesa
Encantada_,--the "Enchanted Mesa,"--a sheer, precipitous rock seven
hundred feet high which is now practically unscalable; although Mr.
F. W. Hodge, of the Bureau of Ethnology, achieved this apparently
impossible feat, and found what is, in his convictions, unmistakable
evidence of human habitation, supporting the traditions regarding this
colossal rock. Some mighty cataclasm of nature swept the approach away;
but if ever there were human habitations on the "Enchanted Mesa," the
period is lost in prehistoric ages.
[Illustration: THE ENCHANTED MESA, NEW MEXICO]
The colossal church in Acoma is a striking feature. Its walls are ten
feet in thickness and sixty feet high, and the church and yard in
which it stands consumed forty years in their construction. It was
only reached by rude stairs cut in the rock. Dim traditions, which are
perhaps hardly more than speculative theory, suggest that these steps
of approach were suddenly swept away by some convulsion of nature at
a time when the men of this prehistoric pueblo were away hunting, or
otherwise engaged in procuring means of sustenance, and that the women
and children were thus cut off from all supplies and aid and left to
starve. Mr. Lummis has a theory that seems to him possible, if not
probable, that there was a ledge of neighboring rocks which served as
ladders to the _Mesa Encantada_, and that these rocks were swept away
by some frightful storm, or some sudden convulsion of nature, during
the absence of the men; and that a new city--the present Acoma--was
then built on the lesser rock on which it now stands. Acoma was old
even when Coronado, in 1540, made his expedition through the country,
from which period the authentic history of New Mexico begins with the
meagre records of the heroic friars and the memorials of the Spanish
conquerors. Laguna, a pueblo founded in 1699, lies twenty miles from
Acoma on the Santa Fé route, of which it is one of the interesting
features. All these old Spanish missions, which are found in more or
less degrees of preservation in all this chain of pueblos in the valley
of the Rio Grande, contain ancient paintings and statues of saints.
Largely, the paintings are crude and worthless, but there exist those
that have legitimate claim to art as the work of Spanish artists not
unknown to fame. Among these is the painting of San José in the mission
at Acoma, a painting presented by Charles II of Spain. This mission
was founded by Friar Ramirez, who dedicated it "To God, to the Roman
Catholic Church, and to St. Joseph,"--who was the patron saint of this
pueblo.
There is an amusing legend that Laguna, submerged in all manner of
disasters, looked on the prosperity of Acoma and ascribed it wholly to
the influence of this picture of the saint before which the people made
their daily adorations and laid their votive offerings. Laguna believed
that San José would invest it with the same felicities enjoyed by the
neighboring city, could they only secure the portrait, and their urgent
plea to borrow it for a time was granted by Acoma. Their confidence in
the saint was justified; peace and plenty again smiled on Laguna, and
they made their daily devotions before the great picture. At length, so
runs the legend, Acoma reminded Laguna that a loan was not a gift,--to
be held in perpetual fee, and demanded its return. The faithless people
of Laguna declared it was their own,--and the case actually went into
litigation and was tried in Court. Judge Kirby Benedict, after hearing
all the evidence, decided in favor of Acoma, but the picture had
mysteriously disappeared. The messengers sent from Acoma to bring the
sacred treasure at last discovered it under a tree half-way between
the two pueblos. They instantly recognized that the saint, rejoiced
at the righteous decision, had started on his homeward journey of his
own volition. The last one of the Franciscan friars to minister in New
Mexico was Padre Mariano de Jesus Lopez, whose work was in Acoma, the
"city in the sky." Of all the cliff-built cities, Acoma is the most
marvellous. Its terraced dwellings seem, as Mr. Lummis so graphically
says, to be "the castles of giants," for "the lapse of ages has carved
the rocks into battlements, buttresses, walls, columns, and towers,
and the view from this cloud-swept city is one never to be forgotten.
On this cliff the sand rises and falls like the billows of the sea."
[Illustration: LAGUNA, NEW MEXICO, ON THE SANTA FÉ RAILROAD]
No latter-day interest of contemporary life, either in the romantic
scenery or the potential development of New Mexico, can exceed the
richness of its prehistoric past and the marvels of this ancient
civilization that yet remain. Alluding to these wonderful monumental
remains, Colonel Max Frost, of Santa Fé, who knows his territory in
every aspect of its life and its attractions, says:
"The Pajarito Cliff-dwellers' Park, the Chaco Cañon, the Gila
Cañon, western Valencia and Socorro counties abound in cliff and
communal buildings, the age of which has puzzled scientists, but
which are older than any other ruins on the American continent, and
probably in the world. The most accessible cliff-dwellers' region
is the Pajarito Park, only one day's overland trip from Santa Fé or
Española, in which twenty thousand cliff-dwellings and caves are
situated within a comparatively small area. The scenery of this
natural park is superb; 'wonderful' is the only adjective that
will do justice to the caves in the cliffs, high and inaccessible
almost as eagles' nests, but showing many other signs of occupation
besides the peculiar picture writings in the soft volcanic tufa of
which the cliffs are composed. In addition to the cliffs, there are
remains of communal buildings of later occupation, some of them
containing as high as twelve hundred rooms. There are also burial
mounds with remains of ancient pottery. Along the eastern foot of
this steep plateau flows the Rio Grande and lie the villages of
San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and San Juan, while to the west rise
the stupendous mountain masses of the Valles, the Cochiti and
Jemez ranges, with their deep forests and cañons, their famous hot
springs, their Indian villages, and their mines. Where else on
earth is there so much of the beautiful in scenery, of romance,
of historic monuments, of prehistoric remains, of the ancient,
the unique, the picturesque, the sublime, to be found as within a
radius of fifty miles of Santa Fé? One day's trip will take the
wanderer from the historic Old Palace and San Miguel Church in the
City of the Holy Faith, over the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo
range, from which rise in full view mountain peaks almost thirteen
thousand feet high, into the picturesque Tesuque Valley and by the
ancient Indian pueblo of Tesuque. The road winds through sandhills
that the air and the rain have cut into grotesque shapes, huge as
Titans and weird as the rock formations in the Garden of the Gods.
Then come once more fertile fields and the village of Cuymungue,
formerly an Indian pueblo, now a native settlement. Along the
Nambe River, with its grand falls, close by the Indian pueblo of
Nambe to the pueblo of San Ildefonso on the Rio Grande; then along
that river through the laughing Española Valley, past the Black
Mesa, a famous Indian battleground, into the large Indian pueblo
of Santa Clara and its mission church to Santa Cruz, also with a
quaint and ancient church building, threads the wagon road across
the river into Española. From there the road ascends the wildly
beautiful Santa Clara Cañon, along a rippling trout stream up to
the steep cliffs of the Puye and the Shufinne, with their hundreds
and thousands of prehistoric caves and communal buildings. And
all that in one day's journey overland! If the trip be prolonged
another day or two, the remarkable hot springs at Ojo Caliente and
the hot springs in the deep chasm of the Rio Grande at Wamsley's,
the Indian pueblos of Picuris and Taos, the finest trout streams
and best haunts of wild game, or the Jicarilla Indian Reservation,
as well as busy lumber and mining camps, can be visited. And that
is only in one direction from Santa Fé! Going south, one day's trip
will pass through the quaint settlements of Agua Fria, Cienega,
and Cieneguilla, by the Tiffany turquoise mines, the old mining
camp of Bonanza, the smelter at Cerrillos, the Ortiz gold placers,
worked a hundred years before gold was discovered in California and
still yielding gold dust and nuggets, the coal mines at Madrid,
where bituminous and anthracite coal have been mined from the same
hillside, the placer and gold mines of Golden and San Pedro, not to
speak of sheep and cattle ranches and the beautiful scenery of the
Cerrillos, Ortiz, San Pedro, and Sandia mountains.
"Another trip of one day from Santa Fé will take the traveller
by the pueblo ruins of Arroyo Hondo over Apache hill, the
battlegrounds of Apache Springs, the interesting native settlement
of Cañoncito, over Glorieta Pass and the battlefield of Glorieta,
to the upper Pecos River, by the ancient and historic Pecos church
ruins, the village of Pecos, and through the most beautiful
summer-resort country in the Southwest, where trout streams babble
in every cañon and where from one summit can be surveyed the hoary
heads of eleven of the twelve highest peaks in New Mexico.
"Another day's trip out of Santa Fé will take the visitor up the
rugged Santa Fé Cañon, by the large reservoir and the Aztec mineral
springs to the Scenic Highway, which crosses the Santa Fé range
into the upper Pecos Valley and unfolds at every step new mountain
views and panoramas magnificent beyond description. Nor do these
trips exhaust the interesting points in and about Santa Fé. Almost
every other town in the territory offers sights and scenes of equal
interest to the tourist and sightseer.
"The prehistoric ruin of the Chaco Cañon and Pueblo Bonito, in
southeastern San Juan County, as well as those at Aztec, in the
same county, are more fully excavated than those of the Pajarito
Park, and in some respects are more palatial and more impressive.
They can best be reached from Gallup or Thoreau on the Santa Fé
Railway in McKinley County.
"The prehistoric ruins on the Gila Forest Reserve, as well as those
in western Valencia and Socorro counties, have not been thoroughly
explored thus far, being distant from the highways of travel;
but on this very account they should have a special charm and
attraction for the student of archæology.
[Illustration: CLIFF DWELLER RUINS, NEAR SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO]
[Illustration: STONE TENT, CLIFF DWELLERS, NEW MEXICO]
"Coming to more recent, although still ancient days, the ruins
of the Gran Quivira and of nearby abandoned pueblo villages,
between the Jumanes Mesa and the Mal Pais and Jornado del Muerto,
are of great historic interest. They are best reached from the
station of Willard at the junction of the Santa Fé Central and
Eastern Railway of New Mexico. Similar ruins are found in western
Valencia, Socorro, and other counties, and divide the interest of
the tourist with the many present-day Indian pueblos and Spanish
settlements boasting of considerable antiquity. The Zuñi, Navaho,
Jicarilla, and Mescalero Indian reservations are well worthy a
visit, and upon the first two named are many prehistoric ruins.
"Foremost in interest and value in historic archæology are the
old mission churches of the Franciscans. In every occupied Indian
pueblo and at the site of almost every abandoned pueblo, there
is one of the monuments of those pioneers of Christianity and
civilization, the Franciscan Fathers. Many of these are in a good
state of preservation, while others are in ruins, but every one is
an object of historic interest.
"The old mission church of San Diego, which is the oldest of the
California missions, was founded in 1769. It is almost a total
ruin; only the front remains in a good state of preservation. The
side walls are still standing, but no portions of the roof or
interior remain. This is the most venerable and venerated historic
monument in the state of California, and is annually visited by
thousands of tourists. It has stood for one hundred and sixty-four
years. It marks the beginning of civilization and Christianity
in California. And yet, in New Mexico, on the upper Pecos,
thirty-five miles west of Las Vegas, at the site of the abandoned
Pueblo of Cicuye, are the ruins of the old Pecos church. The church
is three hundred years old. It was nearly one hundred and fifty
years old when the San Diego mission was founded. It was projected
before the Spanish Armada was destroyed and antedates the coming of
the Mayflower and the settlement of Jamestown. All that is said of
the old Pecos church may be said of that of Jemez. They were built
at the same time. The one at Gran Quivira was founded in 1630, and
is a fairly well-preserved ruin. The churches at San Ildefonso and
Santa Clara are in a complete state of preservation. They are nine
years older than the oldest of the California ruins. The old San
Miguel mission in Santa Fé has been rebuilt. Its walls date from
1650, the roof from 1694, or possibly a few years later. From the
old church at Algodones was taken a bell, cast in Spain in 1356,
and at the Cathedral at Santa Fé and other churches are ancient
relics and art treasures of old Spanish and Italian masters. These
are only a few examples selected at random from the large number
of ancient churches of equally great interest scattered over New
Mexico. Inscription Rock, on the old road to Zuñi, and every one of
the pueblos from Taos on the north to Isleta on the south, and from
the Rio Grande pueblos in the central part to Zuñi in the west, are
worthy of a visit, both for historic and present-day interest.
"Nor is there any other building in this country to compare in
historic interest with the Old Palace at Santa Fé, which has been
more to New Mexico than Faneuil Hall to Massachusetts or Liberty
Hall to Pennsylvania, nor is there any other town in the United
States which offers so much of interest to the tourist as the city
of St. Francis d'Assisi."
It is no exaggeration to say that in many respects the archæological
interest of New Mexico, its atmosphere, its historic color, is as
distinctive as that of Egypt or of Greece, Italy, or Spain. When,
on December 15, 1905, the first long-distance telephone in Santa Fé
established communication _viva voce_ with Denver, while within a
radius of fifty miles, ruins of prehistoric civilization fascinated
the tourist,--surely the remote past and the latest developments of
the present met and mingled after the fashion of "blue spirits and
gray." Very curiously mixed is the civilization of New Mexico. It can
almost be said to lie in strata, like geologic testimony. The ancient
peoples whose very name is lost,--shrouded in antiquity that has closed
the chapters and refuses to turn the pages for the twentieth-century
reader; the Indian population; the Spanish, whose explorers--Alvar
Nuñez, Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, Juan de Oñate, and others--and whose
missionaries, from the ranks of the Franciscan friars, brought to the
savage land the first message of modern civilization; and the American,
which within almost the past half-century has established itself since
that August day of 1846 when General Kearny floated the stars and
stripes from the "Old Palace" in Santa Fé. The American civilization
and high enlightenment has poured itself into this "Land of the Sun
King,"--the "Land of the Turquoise Sky." For now, as Colonel Frost
has so ably and comprehensively noted, "New Mexico is strictly up to
date in its government, in its hotels, its railroad accommodations, in
the protection the law affords, in its universities, colleges, public
schools, sanitariums, charitable institutions, its progress, and in
its prosperity. Churches are found in every settlement, newspapers in
every town, together with fine stores, banking institutions, and every
safety, comfort, and luxury that the centres of civilization of the
East afford." If that vivid and inspiring group of the Muses,--the
muse of History, of Science, of Philosophy, and others,--painted by
Puvis de Chavannes to adorn the court of the grand stairway of rich
Siena marble in the Public Library of Boston,--an achievement in modern
art that alone would immortalize the great painter of France,--if
these Muses could visit New Mexico, the specialty of each would be
found. The richly historic past that has left its various records; the
present, that has impressed into its service every power of science,
of engineering, of architectural construction, of agriculture, and of
social progress, would furnish to each a vast field in its own especial
domain.
A work published in Paris somewhere about the middle of the nineteenth
century, entitled "_Memoires Historiques sur La Louisiane_,"--a
book that has never been translated,--gives an account of a French
expedition in New Mexico in search of a mine of emeralds and their
encounter with the Spanish forces; but although in this engagement
the Spanish troops suffered disaster, the Spanish civilization still
continues, while there is little permanent trace of the French in New
Mexico. It is a curious fact, however, that the present continues this
varied and strangely assorted grouping of races which characterized the
country in its earliest days.
New Mexico reminds one of Algiers. There is the same Oriental
suggestion of intense coloring, of dazzling brilliancy of sky, of
gleaming pearl, of floating clouds.
There is one feature of this trans-Continental trip which is of the
first importance to the tourist, and this is the line of artistic and
beautiful hotels built after the old mission design, the architecture
felicitously harmonizing with the landscape,--those Harvey hotels
built in connection with the Santa Fé stations at principal points, as
at Trinidad, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and others, all christened with
Spanish names,--the "Cardenas," the "Castañeda," the "Alvarado,"--all
of which are conducted with a perfection of cuisine and service
that is rarely equalled. The social and the picturesque charm of
the long journey is singularly enhanced by the leisurely stops made
for refreshment; the leaving the long train--with its two engines,
one at either end--for the little exercise in fresh air gained by
going into the dining-rooms; being able to procure papers at the news
stands, fruit, or other delicacies, and enjoying the scenery and
gaining some knowledge of the place. In connection with the Alvarado,
at Albuquerque, are two buildings: one that offers a most interesting
museum of Indian archæological and ethnological collections, and
the other showing native goods from Africa and the Pacific islands.
Salesrooms connected with these enable the traveller to purchase any
souvenir from a trifle, to the costly baskets, richly colored Navajo
blankets, the strange symbolic pottery, or the objects of religious
rites.
A day's delay at Albuquerque enables the traveller to visit four
interesting pueblos,--Santa Ana, Sandia, Zia, and Jemez,--in a day's
stage ride between Jemez and Albuquerque. At all these important
stations on the route the Santa Fé has established free reading-rooms
for its employés, fitted up with every comfort.
New Mexico, while partaking in the general fascination that invests all
the great Southwest, is especially not only a land of enchantment, but
a land of opportunities. It is a country of untold latent wealth, of
uncalculated resources. There are vast tracts of soil that are ready
for the cultivation they will so bountifully repay; there are over
three hundred mining districts, few of which are developed. Six million
sheep are grazing upon its thousand hills, which would furnish raw
material for a large number of woollen mills. The land is favorable for
the culture of the sugar beet, and manufactories for this product are
needed. A local authority states that "the rubber plant is indigenous
and mineral products are of such extent and variety that industries
that need them for raw material, or incidentally in the process of
manufacture, will find in this part of the United States a location
much more favorable than most of the Eastern manufacturing centres.
There exist large deposits of iron ore, fluxing material and fuel for
furnaces, steel mills and smelters, and there are but few branches
of manufacture which could not be established with profit in this
part of the Southwest. Besides the raw material there are offered the
water-power, the fuel, the cheap labor, special inducements, such as
exemption from taxation for the first five years and a low assessment
thereafter, favorable legislation, cheap building sites, railroad
facilities, freedom from excessive competition, the increasing home
demand of a growing commonwealth of vast resources, and proximity to
the markets of Mexico and the Orient....
"Farmers are urged to come to till the fertile soil under the most
favorable conditions, and with home markets that pay better prices
than can be obtained anywhere else. Only a quarter of a million of
acres are under cultivation, and most of these only in forage plants
or in products that demand little attention; four times that area is
immediately available for agricultural purposes. Not one-half of the
flowing water is utilized, and not one-fiftieth of the flood water is
stored. There are undeveloped possibilities of farming by the Campbell
or dry-soil method. New Mexico raises the finest fruit in the world,
and every other crop that can be produced anywhere in the temperate
zone. Yet it imports annually millions of dollars' worth of flour,
alfalfa, hay, potatoes, fruit, garden produce, poultry, eggs, butter,
cheese, honey, beef, pork, and other products of the farm and dairy
that it can and should raise at home. Free lands, the finest climate
in the world, irrigation, churches, schools, railroad facilities, home
markets, good prices, and extensive range, are all factors which help
to make the life of the farmer and stock grower in New Mexico pleasant
and prosperous."
The visitor from the East enters New Mexico through a long tunnel;
and in Raton, a prosperous city of some eight thousand people located
in the Raton Mountains, is found the centre of an enormous coal belt,
and also a promising oil field. Raton is called the "Gate City." It
exports ice of a very pure quality, the water being from a reservoir
of a capacity of over fifty million gallons. The streets of Raton are
graded and have electric lighting; there is a fine park, long-distance
telephonic connection with Colorado and New Mexican cities, and its
schools and churches are numerous. A new Raton tunnel is now in
process of construction by the Santa Fé line that will enter New
Mexico through the mountains at a lower point. The work is being done
by electric drills that offer a most interesting spectacle in their
process. The tunnel will cost a million dollars. Most beautiful is
the landscape and the coloring of air and sky between Raton and Las
Vegas. The Cimarron range is silhouetted against the western sky;
picturesque points on the old Santa Fé trail are seen; and Mora Cañon,
through which the journey lies, has its romantic attractions. From
the lofty plateau of Raton's Peak the deep, dark valley of Rio Las
Animas Perdidas is disclosed; the matchless Spanish Peaks, "Las Cumbres
Españolas," lift their heads into the blue sky; Pike's Peak gleams like
a monumental shaft in the clouds, and the Snowy Range, for more than
two hundred miles, is within the luminous landscape.
Las Vegas, the second city in importance in New Mexico, is a
fascinating place. There are really three towns of Las Vegas--the old
Spanish town, still retaining its ancient convent and missions; the
new, up-to-date Las Vegas, with its Castañeda Hotel--beautiful in the
old Moorish architecture, with spacious piazzas and balconies; and
Las Vegas Hot Springs, connected by trolley cars. Thus there is the
particular paradise of the invalid, or of those who take prevention
rather than cure and a sunny winter in order not to be invalids; for at
Las Vegas Hot Springs, to which a branch railroad of this omnipresent
Santa Fé conveys the traveller--only six miles--the Hot Springs boil
and bubble like the witches' caldron. Here the guests may immerse
themselves in boiling mineral water, or lie all day in the sunshine,
or whatever else they prefer; and the medicinal waters, internally
and externally administered, are said to make one over altogether.
Rheumatic and tubercular affections flee, it is said, before this
treatment and the wonderful air; and apparently if Ponce de Leon had
only chanced upon Las Vegas he would not have searched in vain for his
fabled fountain.
Albuquerque is an exceedingly "smart" town. Its residents are almost
entirely Eastern capitalists, who are living here that they may keep
an eye on their possessions, mines, ranches, and the things of this
world in general. However largely they have laid up their treasures
in heaven, they have a goodly amount also on earth, over which they
perhaps keep closer watch and ward than over their more immaterial
possessions. At all events, Albuquerque is a sort of Newport of the
West, where people drive and dance and dine from one week to another,
and the women are so stylish as to suggest some occult affinities with
the Rue de la Paix.
In this brilliant and thoroughly up-to-date young city of Albuquerque,
the metropolis of New Mexico; in Las Vegas, one of the fascinating
towns of the continent; in Raton and Gallup, and in its capital, Santa
Fé, the territory has a galaxy of exceedingly interesting towns.
Albuquerque is the trade centre of a region exceeding in area all New
England. With a population estimated at some eighteen thousand; the
seat of the University of New Mexico, whose buildings occupy a plateau
two hundred feet above the town, commanding a beautiful view; with a
scenic background of the Sandia and the Jemez mountains; with the most
extensive free Public Library in the territory; two daily journals and
a number of weekly papers in both Spanish and English, and several
monthly publications; with its splendid railway facilities both to
the North and the South, as well as on the great trans-continental
line from the East to the Pacific; with the shops of the Santa Fé road
employing over seven hundred men, as the junction point of three lines
of this superb system; and with the beautiful Alvarado hotel, in the
old Spanish mission architecture, from whose wide piazzas the view
comprises a host of mountain peaks piercing the turquoise sky, and
whose beauty and comfort is a masterpiece of the magician of the Land
of Enchantment; with the Musée of Indian relics and souvenirs of the
Moki, the Navajo, the Zuñi, Pima, and Apache; the fine Mexican filigree
work; the model of an Indian pueblo, and other curios,--with all these
and many other interesting aspects, Albuquerque fascinates the tourist.
In the "Commercial Club" it has a unique institution representing the
combination of business and social life. The broad streets are well
lighted by electricity; there is electric transit and a fine water
system. Albuquerque has also extensive manufacturing interests, in
foundry, lumber, and other directions, which aggregate an investment of
over two millions of capital with an annual productive value of more
than four millions.
Returning to Las Vegas; with its ten thousand inhabitants, its large
floating population drawn by the medicinal hot springs, and the seat
of the territorial Normal School. As a noted wool centre, and with its
daily papers, good schools, and many churches, it is another alluring
point. One feature of important interest is the new "Scenic Highway"
that is in process of completion between Las Vegas and Santa Fé, across
the Pecos Forest Reserve, which will offer some of the grandest views
in any of the mountain regions of the West. It will be to Santa Fé
and Las Vegas what the beautiful drive between Naples, Sorrento, and
Amalfi is to Southern Italy. This scenic road will wind up to the
Dalton Divide, nine thousand five hundred feet high, where Lake Peak,
glittering with snow, Santa Fé Cañon, and other peaks and precipices
and cañons, are all about, and the Pecos River is seen far below as a
thread of silver. This drive will be one of the famous features of the
entire West when completed. New Mexico monopolizes the greatest belt of
coal deposits west of the Missouri, while Arizona has the monopoly in
pine forests.
The reclamation work in the southern part of the Rio Grande Valley is
now in successful process, and near Engle a reservoir forty miles in
length will be established, having a capacity of two million acre-feet.
It is estimated that a hundred and ten thousand acres of land will thus
be put under irrigated agriculture which will yield marvellous returns
in alfalfa, cereals, vegetables, and fruits.
The government has also purchased the system of the Pecos Irrigation
Company, which is now transferred to the Reclamation Service of the
United States. This is the largest irrigation scheme in New Mexico. It
is located on the Pecos River, which is fed from springs many of which
gush forth from the earth with such force as to indicate that their
source must be in high, snow-crowned hills.
New Mexico's railroad facilities may be estimated from the fact that
not a county in the territory is without a railroad, while many have
the benefit of three lines. With twenty-five hundred miles of railroads
within the territorial limits already in operation, it is confidently
expected that this number will be increased to four thousand miles
within two years, as much of this anticipated increase is already under
construction. Of the present railways eleven hundred miles belong to
the Santa Fé system alone. The matchless scenery of the Denver and
Rio Grande route between Ontonito and Santa Fé offers the tourist one
of the most enjoyable of trips through Española, Caliente, and other
points of beauty with the mountain peaks of San Antonio, Taos, Ute, and
others within the horizon, often appearing like islands swimming in a
faint blue haze.
There is space and to spare in New Mexico. There are almost unlimited
possibilities, with much to get and as much to give, and the latter is
by no means less important in life than the former. Out of a total area
of over seventy-eight million acres only about a quarter of a million
are under irrigation agriculture, and the field for reclamation is as
unlimited as it is promising. The land is fertile and the productions
are abundant. The sky is a dream of color and of luminous beauty, and
the climate is one of the most delightful in the entire world. Nor
does New Mexico suffer from that which is the greatest deprivation of
Arizona,--the lack of water. There is an abundance of the mountain
flood waters that now go to waste which would store vast reservoirs;
there is the flow of copious streams and large river systems, and
there are artesian belts of water all ready for mechanical appliances.
The Campbell dry culture, which is increasingly in use in the eastern
part of Colorado, has been successfully introduced into New Mexico.
Fruit-growing is already becoming an important industry, and the
apple orchard, of all other varieties of horticulture, is the most
successful. At the Paris Exposition in 1900 New Mexico made an exhibit
of apples, and also at Buffalo in 1901, receiving from the former the
award to rank with those of the best apple-growing regions in any part
of the United States, and from the latter the first prize. Peaches,
pears, and apricots grow well; the cherry does not thrive in New
Mexico, but grapes are grown with conspicuous success.
The mineral resources of New Mexico are varied, and include gold,
silver, copper, lead, and other minerals. In precious stones there is
promise of untold development. The Tiffanys own large turquoise mines,
whose supply, thus far, has proved inexhaustible; and the opal and
the moonstone are found in many places. But it is as an agricultural
commonwealth, and as the repository of vast coal belts, that New Mexico
is chiefly distinguished.
It was early in February, 1880, that the first train over the Santa
Fé railroad entered the territorial capital and initiated its
transformation from the mediæval Spanish town to that which is, in
part, the theatre of the progressive American life. In Santa Fé one
of the landmarks pointed out to-day to the visitor is the old Santa
Fé Trail, whose story was told so vividly, some years ago, by Colonel
Henry Inman,[2] who has described the majestic solitude of this highway
and has narrated the mingled experiences of the early pioneers and the
soldiers who thus marched through the wilderness. History and romance
mingle in the wonderful past of New Mexico, and it needs no sibyl of
old to proclaim from the _Mesa Encantada_ the promise of the future to
this beautiful Land of the Turquoise Sky.