Impressions of the Great West. . . Tells of the Interesting Things He Saw in Colorado and New Mexico
By J. McN. Johnson
On the 18th of June, I was up at 5 o’clock, and was surprised to find that we had been delayed five hours on account of a washout; and that we were still in Colorado. But for this delay we would not have seen the state of Colorado at all, for it was about night when we entered the state from the Kansas side, and by schedule time we would have been in New Mexico before day. So even a delay in a journey may not be without its blessing.
The land is as level as a table, but we can see the dim outline of very high mountains far in the North--west. The vegetation is comparatively sparse, but still sufficient to support large herds and flocks. The only wood in sight is the ever present sage brush. It is not the same as our Salvius Officinalis, or garden sage, that is so suggestive of home-make sausage; but its foliage looks not unlike our garden thyme, yet it is sweetly aromatic, and it seems to me it ought to be valuable as a savory herb.
At the town of Earl, the recent rains had washed great gullies in the soil, which showed the rich loam to extend six feet deep and more, and mind you, these rains are few and far between; and as we approach nearer the foot of the mountains, rain rarely ever falls, and here we see the first irrigation ditch. The scene of water spreads an emerald green mantel over all the adjacent lands. We are now in plain view of the Two Brothers Mountains, and are nearing the town of Trinidad, where we have our first plain view of the regulation Mexican adobe dwelling houses.
Trinidad, (A Spanish word meaning Trinity), is a fine town of about 15,000 population. This is the headquarters of John C. Fremont, the “Woolly Horse,” when he was exploring the Southern Rocky Mountains, soon after the discovery of gold in California, where the slogan of the Forty-Niners was “Pike’s Peak or Bust.” It is a county seat of Las Animas county, (meaning the life). It is new, as a town, but old as a fort. The first settlement dates from 1862, and it is the gateway of Raton Pass, pronounced Raw-toon, which carries us over the Rocky Mountains.
We stopped here 20 minutes to get the usual assistance to make the mighty grade which is just before us. Here we began the climb by which we ascend 1,600 feet in 15 miles, and in order to make the grade, we take on two additional locomotives at Trinidad, one a standard locomotive in front of our regular locomotive, and one a strong specially built “pusher,” in the rear, a low built machine with five drivers on each side; and with this assistance we start up the mountain.
I ought to mention that the country in which Trinidad is located is one of the richest in the United States—to whit—Las Animas county. It produces annually 3 million sheep and so much corn I can’t remember it. Besides it has a court house that would make our new Moore county court house look like 30 cents! But you are to remember that I am not telling that here. I make them know that our Moore county court house is so great and fine that it would make |Trinidad’s poor little half a million dollars court house look more like 15 cents than the well rounded sum of 30 cents. Like Dan McLauchlin’s story about the sick mule that came so near dying: After the mile had recovered one hillbilly of a horse doctor said to his assistant: “I wouldn’t give 15 cents for that mule at 10 o’clock last night.’
The assistant answered: “I wouldn’t a’ begin to give 15 cents for him!”
Some of you will remember that Dan McLauchlin in criticizing my former letters on Scotland, said “the little old sorry things” I wrote were the best part of my letters. I was wondering if this short story would be little enough, and sorry enough to claim his commendation.
At Trinidad before reaching the fine depot, we see Sisters Hospital on the left, and in the park on the right is the statue of Kit Carson, the noted pioneer, for whom the city of Carson is named. Fisher’s peak towers 3,000 feet above the city. The peak is named for an artillery officer in General (word obscured) army, and just north of the town is a very high promontory named Simpson’s rest, so called for an old pioneer buried on its summit.
Across Las Animas river on the right hand side of the railway are high bluffs where in 1866 the settlers fought a sanguine battle with the Butte Indians. The pamphlet that is my informant does not give the result of the battle; but it is significant that the Ute Indians are gone, and the settlers are still there. Time is always the best umpire.
Ascending the steep gradient, we arrive at the mining town of Starkville, which is notable as being in the edge of the great Maxwell Grant of one and three-quarter million acres where in the old times the most lavish entertainment was given to all travelers. This princely grant of land was first secured by a French gentleman named Beaubien, and Maxwell married his daughter. The name Beaubien—literally Beautiful Good—I’ll bet Mr. Maxwell, when he married that rich heiress, said to himself: “Pretty Good.”
Passing Wooten, a mining village on the Old Santa Fe Trail, we came to the state line between Colorado and New Mexico, and immediately enter into the Raton Tunnel, which bores directly through the comb of the mountain, and for a little over half a mile we are in total darkness; and while in this tunnel we pass over the highest point on the Sante Fe railway from Chicago to California,--and so emerge into daylight and into New Mexico,--having dismissed our “pusher” before we entered the tunnel, we now “shuck” out our extra locomotive, and roll down the mountain towards Albuquerque in great style.
All my life I had thought of New Mexico as a desert, and of no value to the United States except to answer as a stopper to fill up a mighty hole in the earth, but soon after entering the state borders I found out that I “had another think coming.” New Mexico has more coal that France and Belgium combined, and more than all of Germany. Just think of half the world fighting over the coal of the Ruhr valley, and other coal fields in Central Europe, when our sparsely settled state of New Mexico with its wealth of coal, as well as the other requisites for world progress, beckoning with both hands for the brawn of France, Belgium and Germany to come and take it, and exploit it for the world’s advancement! There would be no France, no Belgium, no Germany, no ill will, and neither thought of war, nor causes of war, but a vast Brotherhood under the Star Spangled Banner—the God-blessedest Flag that ever floated over a free people! Go West, Young Man!”
The Santa Fe railroad on which we are travelling enters the state of New Mexico near Raton tunnel, and traverses the state in a south-westward direction to Albuquerque, thence north-westward to the town of Gallup—but I am anticipating.
Almost as soon as we enter New Mexico we are in the rainless belt, and it is more interesting to look at the preparations for irrigation than to examine and write about the towns we pass through. Indeed I took very few notes on any subject other than the irrigation dams and ditches.
The town of Maxwell, named of course, for the Mr. Maxwell who married the rich Mrs. Beaubien, is the headquarters of an irrigation plant that irrigates 23,000 acres, and makes the whole territory blossom like a rose.
The town of French, the next we pass after Maxwell, is the headquarters of the Antelope Valley Irrigation District, and makes a veritable garden of another large territory of country. The water for these projects are from the head streams of the Red River.
At Comer, we see the wonderful effects of irrigation and the water for this district comes from Lake Charette Irrigation Reservoir, which supplies 43,000 acres with the lifegiving fluid. The town of Wagon Mount must claim more particular, if momentary interest: It is an important camping site on the Old Santa Fe Trail, and it has its name from the fact that there are two high hills, one on either side of the town, that resemble at a distance, the old prairie schooner. They tell us that in the old days this was a favorite ren- (line obscured) and dance themselves into a fury before going into battle.
At Comer, we see the wonderful effects of irrigation and the water for this district comes from Lake Charette Irrigation Reservoir, which supplies 43,000 acres with the lifegiving fluid. The town of Wagon Mount must claim more particular, if momentary interest: It is an important camping site on the Old Santa Fe Trail, and it has its name from the fact that there are two high hills, one on either side of the town, that resemble at a distance, the old prairie schooner. They tell us that in the old days this was a favorite ren- (line obscured) and dance themselves into a fury before going into battle.
Valmora in the Tubercular Sanitorium that has become not only nationally known, but is now famous the world over for the cure of the Great White Plague. I think, but am not quite sure, that our own Roy Ritter spent his last days at that town of Valmora.
The next town I have note of is Las Vegas. I had to remember it, for our Pullman car we are riding in has the same name. Las Vegas is the Spanish for The Meadow—or a more free translation would be The Vegetables, and this place was so named for the reason that even in pre-irrigation days this spot was an oasis in the desert. There are about 10,000 people resident in Las Vegas, which is the county seat of San Miguel county.
Strange to say, one of the most important industries of this place, far south as it is, is the harvesting of natural ice. Gallinus Canyon is at this place, and its sheer walls prevent the sun from shining into the gorge by day to melt the ice that forms by night; and thus the ice accumulates, and is harvested all summer. The railroads for five to six hundred miles each way are supplied by ice from this natural source.
I have no notes of any places after this until we arrive at Albuquerque, and I feel altogether unworthy of the attempt to even dip my brush in the paint to touch this shrine for haven’t I told you that my friend Bion H. Butler was type setter at this town 40 years ago? That fact in itself makes the city a sacred shrine, and for a tyro like myself to presume to splash where the great have painted, is almost blasphemy.
A part of the Koran was written at Medina: But for this Medina would have been no more than another Arabian village; but Medina is a shrine! The town of Ecclefecan has become a sacred Shrine solely because it was there Burns wrote “The Lass of Ecclefeccan,”—and by the same token, Albuquerque will owe its renown in the future to the fact that the best editorial writer in the Southern States was a type setter in that town during the harmless administration of Chester A. Arthur.
Next week we will visit the Grand Canyon of Arizona.
--J. McN. Johnson, Coronade, California
From the front page of The Moore County News, Carthage, N.C., July 26, 1923. The town of Ecclefechan was spelled Ecclefecan and Ecclefeccan in the article. The photos below are postcards of old the Alvarado and Franciscan hotels in Albuquerque, downloaded from the Web.
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