When We Could Travel (VII)

This post is about the final segment of our 2006 road trip to the southwestern United States.  This 7 part recap has been a tribute to the era before Covid-19…when road trips were the norm for us!

We love scenic byways…and New Mexico has 25 named scenic road trips, totally 2,900 miles of driving!  We’d already explored the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway and this time we decided to follow the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway.  This 85 mile drive begins and ends in Taos New Mexico.

This is the St. James Hotel in historic downtown Cimarron New Mexico.  The second photo shows part of the lobby.  The hotel was built in 1872 by Henri Lambert, formerly the personal chef for Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.  Originally the hotel was named the Lambert Inn.  The hotel is reputed to be haunted by the spirits of those men who were murdered here in the late 1800s during New Mexico’s ‘wild west’ days.  It is claimed that 26 men were murdered in this building.  The ceiling of the bar is riddled with bullet holes.  The hotel is in the National Register of Historic Places and it is part of the Cimarron Historic District.  

In its heyday, the St. James was visited by many famous folks, including lawmen and outlaws.  The photo above shows the original room tags along with the names of the well-known people who stayed in those rooms. 

The tags include an outlaw relative of the famous Davy Crockett who was named Davy Crockett II.  He was an outlaw and became one of the town bullies.  He was allegedly drunk when he murdered 3 Buffalo Soldiers (US Army) and wounded another in the bar at the St. James Hotel.  He was acquitted as he was drunk and ‘not responsible for his actions’.  Shortly afterwards locals became tired of his behavior and a posse was formed and they gunned him down.

Pancho Griego was another gunman who in turn was gunned down by the infamous Clay Allison.  Elfego Baca was a gunman, a US Marshal, a lawyer and a politician.  Jesse James stayed here as did his killer, Bob Ford.  So did another former member of the James Gang, Dick Liddil.  Hotel guest Lew Wallace was a Civil War Union General, Governor of the New Mexico Territory and the author of the bestselling book “Ben Hur”.  Western author Zane Grey stayed here too.  His best-selling book was “Riders of the Purple Sage”.  A total of 112 films have resulted from Grey’s works… Other famous folks who’ve stayed here include Wyatt and Morgan Earp, Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley.   

The hotel has been updated since we’ve been there and the reviews are quite positive.  If you’re interested in history, the old west and ghosts, this may be the place for your stay in Cimarron.  You can check it out at http://www.exstjames.com/.

Lucien B. Maxwell, a former trader and trapper, married the daughter of Carlos Beaubien in 1864…thereby acquiring the Beaubien-Miranda land grant.  The grant covered 1,714,765 acres…formerly Jicarilla Apache lands...and larger than the state of Delaware. Maxwell’s large scale ranching activities made Cimarron the center of the cattle industry in northern New Mexico.  It didn’t hurt that Cimarron also was an important stop on the Mountain route of the Santa Fe Trail. 

In any case, one of the surviving structures from that era is Maxwell’s 1864 stone flour mill.  It was here that Apaches and Utes obtained their government flour and rations while travelers along the Santa Fe Trail jostled into the mill with them to replenish their own supplies.  Today the old mill is a museum full of all kinds of memorabilia and collectables. 

If you’re into western history, the Beaubien-Miranaa land grant is a topic that keeps on giving.  Disputes over the land between settlers and Maxwell began early on.  But, in 1870 he sold the land and that’s when the real conflict began!  From 1873 until 1886, the Colfax County Range War raged on!  This classic conflict between farmers and small ranchers and those who claimed or actually owned large tracts of land resulted in the deaths of at least 200 persons.  To learn more, just go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_County_War.   

We passed hundreds of elk grazing in fields as we drove along the northern portion of the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway.  These are not ‘farmed’ elk.  By the end of the 1800s, elk herds in New Mexico had been wiped out.  Then ca. 1910, Rocky Mountain elk from Yellowstone Park in Wyoming were introduced into northern New Mexico. 

Today it’s estimated that there are between 70,000 and 90,000 elk in the state.  Elk hunting is big business but it hasn’t seemed to keep up with the population growth.  In January 2020, one rancher filed a complaint with the state wildlife agency, stating that as many as 1,000 elk had migrated through his property destroying the reserves of hay he’d set aside for his livestock.   

This is a view of Red River New Mexico along NM Hwy 38 looking down from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  Red River, at 8,671 feet above sea level, is near the base of the Red River Ski Area. 

The town was founded ca. 1895 when miners were drawn in by gold strikes in the area and trappers sought new sources for game.  For a while, Red River was a booming mining camp, with gold, silver and copper finds in the area.  At its peak, the town’s population was estimated at 3,000.  Today the town has about 460 residents but it is a popular tourist destination.  Skiing and trout fishing get a lot of focus here…

Note: The Red River Trout Hatchery offers an opportunity for kids to do a bit of trout fishing.

The architecture of this church in Arroyo Hondo New Mexico caught my attention.  This Catholic Church is named Our Lady of Sorrows and it was built in 1892. 

Arroyo Hondo itself is a small census-designated place in Taos County.  It is historically notable as the site of the killing of 6 – 8 employees of Turley’s mill by a force of allied Native Americans in 1847.  This happened during the Taos Revolt, an insurrection of New Mexicans and Native Americans against the US Territorial government during the Mexican-American War.

We took several photos of the Rio Hondo River.  This pretty little river starts high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near the Taos Ski Valley.  It flows for about 20 miles until it joins the Rio Grande River.  This little stream is prized for bird-watching and trout fishing.

This is a view of the Rio Grande Gorge in northern New Mexico.  The canyon or gorge begins near the border of Colorado and stretches about 50 miles from the northwest to just southeast of Taos.  Just south of the Rio Grande Bridge, (where this photo was taken), the depth of the gorge is 800 feet.

Ancient pinon and juniper forests along the gorge include trees that are 500 years old.  Big horn sheep populate the area.  In 1968, the river was one of the first 8 rivers in the USA that were designated as part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.  In 2013, the gorge and 242,500 acres of surrounding land was designated as the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument.

The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge is a steel deck arch bridge across the gorge, roughly 600 feet above the river.  It’s the tenth highest bridge in the United States.  Unfortunately the bridge has also attracted a number of people who committed suicide by jumping into the gorge.  The bridge itself has been featured in a number of movies including: “Natural Born Killers”; “Twins”; “White Sands”; “She’s Having a Baby”; “The Signal”; “Paul”; “Wild Hogs” and; “Terminator Salvation”.

Laurie took this photo of storm clouds over US Hwy 64 as we once again approached Taos New Mexico.

While I don’t remember the name of this hotel in Taos, we both loved the horses tethered at check-in parking!  Actually, the riders were probably in the bar quaffing a cold one… 

This is a photo of the Rio Grande River between Taos and Santa Fe New Mexico, a bit further south of where it passes through the gorge.  It looks very inviting and peaceful at this juncture on its flow toward the Gulf of Mexico. 

Beginning in south-central Colorado, the river stretches approximately 1,896 miles to its mouth near Brownsville Texas.  Depending on how it’s measured, the Rio Grande is either the fourth or fifth longest river system in North America.  Since the mid-twentieth century, heavy water consumption by farms and cities via many diversion dams along its course means that only 20% of its natural discharge actually reaches the Gulf…

These days we see roadside memorials everywhere for those who have died on our highways.  It was more unusual to see these markers in 2006.  This memorial marking the death of a loved one was well done and very colorful…

After passing Santa Fe on our way south along NM Hwy 14, we came to the town of Madrid New Mexico.  We were very excited to see that there was a Chile Festival going on!  We parked and walked over to the area where vendor’s booths were set up…and were promptly chased off by a security guard!  In actuality this wasn’t a festival but rather a movie set… They were filming the movie “Wild Hogs” which starred John Travolta, William H. Macy, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, Ray Liotta, Marisa Tomei and Peter Fonda.  Of course, we didn’t know anything about the movie when we stopped.  We sure didn’t see any actors…

Note: A little research revealed that John Travolta managed to cast 2 of his siblings in this movie…Sam and Margaret Travolta.

In real life, Madrid NM is a census-designated place with a population of around 200.  It has become an artists’ community with galleries lining Hwy 14, aka the “Turquoise Trail”.   Madrid was originally a company owned mining town.  In 1895, the Cerrillos Coal Railroad brought in prefabricated wooden miner’s cabins from a far away as Topeka Kansas.  There just weren’t enough carpenters and suppliers in the region build an instant town!  Since the town was wholly owned by a series of corporations for the next 80 years, it was never incorporated.

This is a view looking down at Albuquerque New Mexico as seen from the Sandia Crest…10,678 feet above sea level.  Albuquerque is the largest city in the state and it’s also situated at one of the highest elevations of any major US city.  Elevations range from 4,900 to 6,700 feet above sea level.  The city has a population of about 560,000.  We only spent 2 nights here, one when we flew in and another the night before we flew out.

While in Albuquerque, just for old-time’s sake, I decided to find the former Montgomery Ward store at Winrock Shopping Center.  I’d been the head of security, inventory, audit and safety for the company and I was curious to see what had happened to the building since Montgomery Ward went out of business in 2001.  The answer was that it was still unoccupied.  I have since learned that this space never had another tenant… When this mall opened in 1961, around 30,000 people visited it on its first day!  At last report, Winrock Town Center was being developed as an open-air mixed-use development including department stores and theaters.   

And so ends our 2006 road trip to Northern New Mexico, NE Arizona and Southern Colorado.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave