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.

"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.

CLIFF DWELLER RUINS, NEAR SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO

STONE TENT, CLIFF DWELLERS, NEW MEXICO

"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.