taos
Taos Courthouse frescos under construction. On scaffolding, from left to right: Public Works of Art Project regional coordinator Gustave Baumann; Bert Phillips with his ‘The Shadow of Crime.’
PEOPLE THAT HAVE BEEN TO TAOS AGREE — the place feels deep. Deeply rooted. Deeply connected to the earth and the sky and the wonders in between.
That’s because people have been living here for thousands of years. Is it the land scape — or us — that grows these roots? Maybe it’s both.
Taos News loves to bring you these deeply-rooted stories from the land each year in Tradiciones: Raices (Roots). Look for our arts special section next week, and a salute to our Unsung Heroes.
In this year’s issue, Virginia Clark recounts the 2022 Fiestas de Taos, the traditional celebration of all things El
Norté, which was held in Taos Plaza again this year. And Anita Otilio Rodríguez looks back lovingly at the celebration’s sometimes raucous history.
Built in 1932 on Taos Plaza, the Historic Taos County Courthouse is about to undergo a complete renovation and restoration, returning the iconic build ing to its former glory. Tamra Testerman explores the past and the future plans for the courthouse’s return on page 8.
And in Peñasco, a 91-year-old adobe
schoolhouse is teaching the next gener ation of Northern New Mexicans about historic adobe buildings through the rehabilitation of the old Saint Anthony Parochial School. Members of the community bought the building from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, and plan to turn it into a community center. I write about it on page 12.
Thank you for reading this year’s issue of Tradiciones: Raices. I hope these stories inspire you to dig into the history of our unique community in Taos.
Michael Tashji, Magazine Editor
Investing in your community and creating positive change is the philosophy behind our Community Rewards program. In 2021, we gave $580,000 in Community Rewards grants to 123 local organizations that are doing outstanding work throughout the state. Nusenda grants support groups doing good work in the areas of Education, Healthcare, the Arts, Environment and Wildlife, and Community Services and Support.
Investing in your community and creating positive change is the philosophy behind our Community Rewards program. In 2021, we gave $580,000 in Community Rewards grants to 123 local organizations that are doing outstanding work throughout the state. Nusenda grants support groups doing good work in the areas of Education, Healthcare, the Arts, Environment and Wildlife, and Community Services and Support.
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One of the oldest and most beloved celebrations in Northern New Mexico, Fiestas de Taos, returned in force this year with the theme
La Tierra de Dios!/!Taos: God’s Country! Fiestas honors culture, traditions and all things Taos, offering centuries of celebrating the gathering of generations for delicious cuisine, traditional music and fellowship, while honoring the cultural uniqueness of Taos.
Acequias are lifelines, vital to our agricultural heritage, economic stability, and growth.
For generations they have prevailed, and they are the life force of the generations to come.
“Through the Taos Community Foundation we have invested in education, the arts, and the expansion of the Shuter Library in Angel Fire. We feel that working together with the Community Foundation helps to create straightforward and positive outcomes in our Moreno Valley community. And, it makes giving more enjoyable.”
— Ana and Ed McCracken
Rio Grande ATP, Inc. has been helping your family members and friends find recovery for substance use disorder for 44-years. Our communities are strong and resilient! There are many Paths to Recovery.
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ACEQUIAS
Artist: Questa's Roger Harrington, “Early Morning on Llano Acequia” pastel 12” x 12”
Chevron is proud to sponsor this ad in recognition of Questa-area acequia associations.
IN OVER 100 YEARS, ON RECORD, Fiestas has only been cancelled three times: in 1969 where newspaper archives note the reason as “Hippie Problems”; in 1946 for an unknown reason; and for the 2020 COVID lockdown.
Since 1981, nonprofit Taos Fiesta Council, Inc. has contracted with the Town of Taos to coordinate and manage all Fiestas de Taos activities. The longest-serving council member, Fiestas Council President Don Fran sisco Trujillo II, decades ago was the Cabal lero escort of Royal Court member Princesa Annette Torres.
“I just never left,” he told Tempo for this year’s coverage. “The Fiestas are a time for fellowship, dancing and music — to celebrate community and to taste from the menus avail able only during Fiestas.”
The 2022 Royal Court are Reina Sonya Mariaelena Francis Gallegos and Princesas Mariah Savanah Teresa Cebada, Mariaelena Feliz Agatha Lucero and Kyra Vanessa Trujillo. Elected by an all New-Mexican panel of auditor and judges, the court serves as ambassadors for Taos long after the three-day celebration ends, devoted to keeping their heritage and culture alive.
Friday evening’s Fiesta Mass and Royal Court Procession to the Plaza and Saturday’s Children’s Parade took place without a hitch, as did the Gran Baile de Las Fiestas as well as the three-day weekend of nonstop music. Only the Historic Fiestas parade down Paseo del Pueblo was cancelled due to road construction.
So Las Fiestas are now back in full swing, honoring and celebrating all things Taos. As the 2022 Reina so eloquently stated, “The diver sity of culture in Taos is so unique. We are a proud people that share our rich cultures and traditions with one another and appreciate each other’s beliefs and values. Somos la gente de Dios.”
PICTURED BELOW IS DONCITO, in all his glory as an official member of the Taos Municipal Police Force. He waited all year for fiestas because the cops would give him a badge and let him direct traffic at the Taos Plaza intersection. One year, he refused to give it back. After all, it signified his greatest moment. And so they let him keep it.
There was plenty of drinking back in those days (New Mexico still has the greatest number of alcohol-related deaths in the nation; per the Santa Fe New Mexican, July 29, 2022), and the hard-core, the borrachos, would start warming
up several days before — so the drunk tank was like Planet of The Apes on steroids before fiestas officially began.
One year, the mayor fired the chief of police but forgot to tell him, and the chief read it in the paper. He was pissed. So the first day of fiestas, when everyone was just coming out of mass all dressed up, the ex-chief let all the drunks out of jail. They were plenty hediondos y chocoques (smelled terrible), they goosed the women, gave the finger to the men and made a beeline for El Gaucho, the bar none of us kids were allowed to go near.
Back then, our neighbors from the Pueblo used to come and dance in the parade and on the bandstand (before they put the statue of Padre Martinez in the plaza and opened an old wound). The hoop dance was invented at Taos Pueblo by the Marcus and Gomez families. Frank and Josephine Marcus were also well-known performers, and they would sing and their kids would dance.
Our grandparents spoke three languages. The old people would sit on the plaza and joke, making fun of each other’s accents. There was a lot more exchange between the Pueblo and town in those days — lots of families had compadres or comadres — people who would stand up at each other’s weddings and baptisms, creating lifelong, formal relationships that carried certain obligations and privileges.
Compadrasco — standing up for someone’s wedding — for instance, was a serious matter. The novios, the engaged couple, would select a respectable older couple and the elders would be responsible for giving advice when the marriage hit rough spots, as counselors and supporters of the sacrament of marriage itself. The compadres, for a baptism, were supposed to provide clothes for First Holy Communion, Confirmation, when school begins, graduation — and if the parents die — to take care of the kids. These customs forged deep generational bonds between the town and Pueblo.
For months before fiestas, the local artists would design elaborate costumes and really gorgeous floats — including a “Bibiron,” a giant puppet snake. Spud Johnson dressed up as a Jesuit, rented a donkey and rode around the plaza blessing everybody and forgiving them for the sins they were going to commit during fiestas. There was a prize for the best children’s costume and our mothers sewed for weeks to make them. There were other prizes — the ugliest dog, things like that.
Those who had left Taos saved all year to come home for the fiestas, and we had tons of parties. You were supposed to change your clothes several times during the three days, and if you didn’t wear at least a fiesta bandana or a hollyhock in your hair, they would put you in the kangaroo court — a makeshift cart with wooden bars. Bail was the price of a beer — fifty cents!
Anita Otilio Rodríguez was born in Taos in 1941. She is an enjarradora (traditional adobe finisher), painter, activist, card-reader, award-winning author (“Coyota In The Kitchen,” UNM Press 2016), and a columnist on hiatus for Tempo. See her Facebook page where portions of this piece were previously posted.
Like many of the weath ered adobes lining the Taos Plaza, the Historic Taos County Courthouse has tales to tell. Some are dramatically punctu ated with calamitous fires and phoenix-like restores, others boast of a rich history of another time. Soon, another chapter will unfold in the life of one of the stalwart anchors on the plaza, sometimes referred to as “The Old Courthouse.”
The first courthouse in the mid-1800s was consumed by flames, as was the second courthouse, erected in the late 1880s.
Albuquerque architect Louis Hesselden designed the now-historical Taos County Courthouse in 1932, using an eclectic blend of Indian Pueblo, Spanish Colonial, and Mission style in an architectural homage to the indigenous families of Northern New Mexico.
Bedecking the smooth interior adobe surfaces are 10 murals by the Taos Soci ety of Artists’ Bert Geer Phillips and Victor Higgins and modernist artists Emil Bist tram and Ward Lockwood. The four paint ers — often referred to as the “Taos Fresco Quartet” — rendered in a social realism/ allegorical style, murals that examine the use and misuse of the law and showcase the deeply-talented artists of the time. The
murals were commissioned by the Works Project Administration, Public Works of Arts Project, organized by the Department of Treasury in 1933 with funds from the Civil Works Administration. An important catalyst behind the project was enhanc ing public spaces with inspired art and advancing the “American Scene” narrative.
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Kellie A. Harris, DDS
Kayci M. Harris, DMD
Richard Sanchez, the Town of Taos County Construc tion Administrator, has fond childhood memories of tour ing the courthouse, and is knowledgeable about its lesser-known history. “The Courthouse has so many significant aspects: it is the third courthouse in Taos. It also is the beginning of the Pueblo Revival architectural style. It was built with a loan the county took out to reconstruct during the depres sion, which shows the gritty American spirit of self-reliance and American history. It was a tough time, the entire world was in a depression. Because of this time frame, the murals have become both art history and American/World history. As a child traveling to Taos to visit my grandparents and family in the sixties, I remember it was always fun to go into the plaza and visit the courthouse and the Hotel La Fonda. There always seemed to be some thing interesting going on.”
Recently, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández secured over a million dollars to start the overhaul of the courthouse, which is practically ready to launch. The former Town of Taos Mayor Dan Barrone is credited with leading the charge to rehabilitate the courthouse and it’s been years in the making. Sanchez, who will oversee the construction details, extrapolates the final costs to exceed $10 million. He said the design team of Conron & Woods Architects based in Santa Fe was an obvious choice for the project because of their relationship in a myriad of historical projects throughout the state over the years. “Mr. Woods is a Taos native and still lives part-time in Taos. The Contractor is Franken Construction out of Las Vegas, N.M. and he’s been engaged in many historical projects over the years.” The architectural interior vision includes developing the upper level to showcase Taos Pueblo artists, and transforming the lower level into an inviting center of artisan shops extending the vibrant commerce from the Historic Taos Plaza.
Sanchez outlined the first phase of the project beginning with “the demolition of the west infill and the front portal. The basic infrastructure for the elevator along with new storm and sanitary lines will be priority because the initial one million dollar funds are earmarked for ADA improvements. The County secured additional funding and committed some funding from the general fund for parts of the work. Construction will take place in phases, includ ing upgraded heating and cooling, ADA-compliant public restrooms, life safety improvement equip ment (fire and intrusion alarms, sprinklers system) electrical requirements and finishes. Taos County has cobbled together $5 million. This will be at least a two-year project because of the physical constraints and requirements along with mitigating disturbance to the plaza, public and plaza businesses, making it a hard project with planning taking a big part of it.”
There will be at least two public meetings before the construction begins. “The contractor has signed the contract. Purchase orders are being processed, and we are almost ready to start,” Sanchez said.
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Roberto “Bobby” J. Gonzales
State Senator, District 6 Democrat
Roberto
The Peñasco Valley Historical Preser vation Society took its first major step towards the realiza tion of a regional history museum when it finalized the purchase of the old Saint Anthony Paro chial School building last December.
The nonprofit group plans to convert the former school building, built in 1931, into a historical museum and assembly hall that will serve as a repository for photographs, documents, art and artifacts.
“We want to bring hope back to the community, and highlight the amaz ing things from this place. The school is emblematic of that,” said Kaori López, vice president and board member of the Peñasco Valley Historical Preservation Society.
López said the group used private dona tions to buy the building from the Archdio cese of Santa Fe, at a cost of $30,000. The school, located at the intersection of NM 75 and NM 73 in Peñasco, has remained vacant since classes ended there in 1987.
The school building has seen little change over the last 90 years. The 1-story adobe building, which measures 180 by 30 feet, had accordion-folding wooden doors to divide the school into four rooms. Only one of the room dividers remains today.
About a dozen architecture students at the University of New Mexico–Albuquer que have assisted the group in planning the renovation, as part of the university’s Preservation Technologies and Adaptive Re-Use class.
The students hosted informational sessions, conducted interviews and surveys, and completed a structural anal ysis of the school building. In July, three students presented the class’ findings to nearly 100 attendees at a public hearing in Peñasco.
Proposed exterior work would include
removing the gable roof and restora tion of the parapet roof, replacement of doors and windows, and refurbishing the adobe walls. Proposed interior renova tions would include repairing the wood floors and replacing the accordion-fold ing wooden doors, as well as installing new lavatories and ADA-compliant ramps.
There is also talk of recreating the Hot Lunch cafeteria, a once-beloved central feature in town where residents would gather for food and conversation. Exterior landscaping, a pollinator garden and other site-specific proposals were discussed.
Alfredo Romero, the preservation soci ety president, estimated the project would cost in excess of $1 million, and said the group was applying for grant money to make the project a reality.
Saint Anthony High School was founded in 1932 by Fr. Peter Kuppers, pastor at Saint Anthony Church in Peñasco.
Kuppers successfully petitioned the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids in Michigan to send a group of Catholic nuns to teach at the school. The nuns were paid by the state, because the community did not have a public school at that time.
Lydia Zellers, a Protestant from nearby Dixon, took issue with Catholic nuns proselyting in public schools, and filed a lawsuit against the state in 1948. The lawsuit argued that New Mexico had a Roman Catholic school system supported by public funds.
Zellers v. Huff, also known as the Dixon School Case, became a landmark lawsuit in the U.S. and directly challenged the 1st Amendment principle of the separation of church and state. Thirty schools in 11 counties across New Mexico joined with the plaintiff in the suit.
Raymond Huff, the chairman of the New Mexico Board of Education, Gov. Thomas
Mabry, and 145 priests, nuns and brothers of Catholic religious orders were defen dants in the case.
The state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff in 1951, and Saint Anthony was recreated as a tuition-funded K-8 parochial school that included general religious education along with science, math and language arts.
Sr. Ada Dominguez was born in Peñasco, and attended Saint Anthony as a young girl beginning in 1957.
“There were two grades in each room,” Dominguez said. “When the teacher was teaching the other grade, I would always listen.”
She and her nine siblings would all attend school at Saint Anthony.
“I remember the great big icicles as they used to grow from the back porch. They were so thick they’d come all the way to the ground,” she recalled.
Dominguez worked as a teacher and administrator in Catholic and public schools in New Mexico for 40 years. Now retired, she helps fundraise for the pres ervation society.
After the school closed in the late 80s, the community talked about turning it into a church hall for Saint Anthony Church.
The idea deeply divided the community, and the issue was dropped. The building languished, until the idea of the preserva tion society began to take hold about three years ago.
The preservation society plans to include a café and gift shop in the renovated build ing, to offer local artists a place to sell their quilts, paintings, furniture and more. “To help them make a living,” Leonara López, the groups volunteer director of develop ment, said.
It’s also looking to state agencies that can confer official preservation status and help fund the restoration.
“Preservation is the main thing,” López said. “We want to save our stories.”
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Taos Community Foundation for being our title sponsor for this year’s Tradiciones section.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Taos Community Foundation for being our title sponsor for this year’s Tradiciones section.
Your generous support made this year’s Tradiciones section one of our biggest ever.
Your generous support made this year’s Tradiciones section one of our biggest ever.
Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future. These people are our own links in what continues to be an unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo.
From right, War Chief Fred L. Romero, Lt. War Chief Steven Archuleta, War Chief Secretary Jeremy S. Lujan and War Chief staff members Marvin Lefthand, Dominic J. Montoya, Miguel Pemberton, Sky S. Romero, Gabriel F. Gomez, Dwayne T. Lefthand Jr., Dwyer J. Lujan, Corwin Vigil, and Forrest C. Lefthand (some not pictured).
COVID-19 UPDATE: Taos Mountain Casino is proudly open, keeping you safe with masks and temperature checks.