2 | Leyendas
Courtesy Carrie Leven
This arborglyph is a little difficult to read, but it appears to be from a Manuel Silva Jr., from El Rito, back in 1945. See page 11 for the story .
Come explore
the Leyendas of Taos
W
ith more than 1,000 years of human activity in Taos County, the only challenge we have filling Leyendas, the first in our yearly four-part publication known as Tradiciones, is narrowing down
the list of story ideas. The term "legends" can take on more than a few meanings, which only makes it more difficult to choose which stories we want to explore each year. Pure legends are, "stories from the past that are believed by many people but cannot be proved true," according to Merriam-Webster. Such stories include ones like Jim O'Donnell's search for a bar from his past on page 14. Along the way, O'Donnell ran into even more mystery and nostalgia, with stories of bars that could not be verified and tales of ghosts that haunt these old Taos buildings. The history of the tunnels underneath the town's historic district is also a tough nut to crack. Teresa Dovalpage went in search of these underground passages only to find out that not many folks are willing to discuss them. Is it because they themselves don't know much
about the issue at hand, or is there a deeper secret to the story that nobody is talking about? Find out on page 4. People can become legendary as well, either for good or bad deeds. Arthur Manby certainly falls into the latter category, as a notorious con-man and land thief. It ultimately cost him his head, and they wouldn't even bury him inside the gates at Kit Carson Cemetery. That said, his legacy is alive and well at Manby Hot Springs — a refuge for the one-time chief scoundrel of Taos, and for countless others since. Check out Andy Dennison's story about the springs on page 10. Andrew Oxford explores a group of people, so to speak, who through their legendary deeds in life, have made Sierra Vista Cemetery a legendary last resting place. Once neglected and somewhat forgotten, recent efforts have made Sierra Vista a place to pay respects to some of Taos' greatest artists and icons. See page 8 for the story. Certain events can also take on legendary status, like the famous softball games that were played in the 1960s between the Hog Farm commune of hippies and the residents of Picuris Pueblo. Phaedra Greenwood was there, and she brings us the story on page 6. What she didn't know was that the games have continued for years,
with both groups ultimately turning "legit" and joining Taos' recreational softball league. And finally, here in Taos, everyone knows about our legendary landscape. What a lot of people don't know is that there was a time when some folks, surveyors included, considered our southern sentinel, Jicarita Peak, the tallest mountain in the state. We all know, however, that the tallest peak is to the north of Taos, Wheeler Peak. Cody Hooks takes a look at the shared history of the two mountains on page 16. And Andrew Oxford explores our landscape in more detail with a story about arborglyphs — aka tree carvings — on page 11. As it turns out, those messages from the past can tell us a lot about the history of our region. What's truly exciting about Leyendas as a publication for us at The Taos News is the way these stories germinate from a seedling of an idea, maybe just a rumor or myth, into something more tangible. Just as Greenwood was surprised to learn that those softball games continue, each story is full of surprises and lessons about who we are in Taos County, a place as legendary as they come. — Andy Jones, special sections editor
Leyendas | 3
Photo by Geraint Smith
Contents 6 4 A cross-cultural
The secret underground of Taos
By Teresa Dovalpage
8
softball tradition: The hippies and the Indians
Bringing life to Sierra Vista Cemetery By Andrew Oxford
By Phaedra Greenwood
10
Manby Hot Springs: Not quite what the man envisioned, but a legacy nonetheless By Andy Dennison
11
14
The forest for the trees: Arborglyphs tell stories of a changing forest
The missing and the haunted: The ghost bars of Taos
By Andrew Oxford
By Jim O’Donnell
17
Jicarita and Wheeler Peaks: Sentinels of Northern New Mexico By Cody Hooks
STAFF Robin Martin, owner • Chris Baker, publisher • Joan Livingston, editor • Chris Wood, advertising manager • Andy Jones, special sections editor • Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer Ray Seale, production, technology and digital director • Ayleen Lopez, digital administrator • Tina Larkin and Rick Romancito, photographers • Cody Hooks and Andrew Oxford, staff writers CONTRIBUTORS Steven Bundy, photographer • Andy Dennison,
writer •
On the cover One of the tunnels beneath Doña Luz Lane,
Photo by Tina Larkin
Jim O’Donnell,
writer •
Teresa Dovalpage,
writer •
Gus Foster,
photographer •
Phaedra Greenwood,
writer •
Gak Stonn,
photographer
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4 | Leyendas
The secret underground of Taos Tina Larkin
One of the tunnels beneath Do単a Luz Lane.
Leyendas | 5
Historic passages or old tunnels?
D
By Teresa Dovalpage
oña Luz Lane is a whimsical street just a few steps off Taos Plaza. Among the many shops that line the street is Red Cat Melissiana, a folk art and antique store housed in an old adobe. The front entrance is decorated with honey cups; an inviting turquoise stable door opens to the main room. Judging by its exterior, nobody would guess that the shop hides a secret inside — or, more appropriately, underneath.
Two tunnels in a cellar
Two tunnels run under Red Cat Melissiana. One is supposed to go to the bandstand in the Plaza — where the town jail used to be — and the other to the house of a friend of Padre Antonio José Martínez. Store owner Melissa Serfling says she has carefully inspected the space around the tunnels’ entrance. “I have seen the old pillars, supported on logs and big rocks,” she said. “They look like they are falling down and it’s very likely that the walls have caved in between my shop and the Plaza.” They don’t seem to be safe to explore so Serfling hasn’t ventured in. “I am not too good underground,” she admits. “If the tunnel collapses on me, then I would become another one of the many spirits in my cellars.”
The church connection
Next door to her shop is the restaurant El Gamal, which is believed to have another tunnel that goes directly to the place where Our Lady of Guadalupe Church used to be. According to Serfling, the space where El Gamal is now was a speakeasy then. “Considering that there were also several brothels on this street, one can assume that all sorts of things went on here,” Serfling said. At the time when the tunnels were in use, Our Lady of
Guadalupe Church was located in what is today a parking lot, across Don Fernando Street from Doña Luz Lane. “The Church burned down in the ’60s and they paved over the cemetery to build the parking lot,” said Serfling. “I imagine that the spirits of the people who were buried there didn’t like that at all!”
An underground network?
Serfling says there are likely many more tunnels in the area. “Some old neighbors have told me that all downtown Taos is a catacomb with passages under the streets,” she said. Benina Roybal is the owner and manager of Bella’s Mexican Grill, also located on Doña Luz Lane. “I’ve heard that there are tunnels under the restaurant,” she said. “But I haven’t seen them.” Douglas Patterson, president of Living Designs Group, owns the building where Bella’s is located. He says that he has been in the cellar several times, but has never seen the tunnels either.
Possible origins
The majority of the buildings on Doña Luz Lane were built in the 1880s and the tunnels probably date from around the same time. One of the most prevalent theories is that they were used as shelters to protect Taos residents from Comanche raids. Serfling, however, doesn’t agree with it. “I think they were a convenient way to go from one place to another without being seen, whether people were visiting their ‘nighttime friends’ or just going to the Plaza,” she said.
A street with a past
Doña Luz Lane has an interesting and somewhat tarnished history — it was once the red light district of Taos. Doña Luz was the name of a brothel madam. There were also several small shops along the street that sold liquor during Prohibition. Today, many businesses there are owned by women. “And so we call ourselves ‘The Ladies of Doña Luz,’” said Serfling.
Spirits in the tunnels
According to Serfling, the tunnels, and other places in the neighborhood, are often visited by spirits and some may even reside here. She also tells says her bloodline leads back to a Salem witch, so she is used to dealing with esoteric presences. “I greet the spirits in the morning,” she said. “Sometimes they are mischievous and like to tip things over, but in general they keep quiet. However, they let their presence be known: I have been in the cellar at night and heard footsteps above, though there was no one there.” Fortunately, the spirits don’t bother Red Cat Melissiana’s patrons. Serfling has owned the store for five years, and says she has never felt apprehensive when she has been alone at night in the shop. “On the contrary, I get a feeling of acceptance from the spirits,” she said. “But they have been hostile to some men, like a construction worker who found his tools unexplainably moved away from him.” Serfling believes that some ghosts are the spirits of women who were prostitutes on Doña Luz Lane.
In the cellar
This article wouldn’t be complete without a personal visit to Serfling’s cellar. Dionne de la Cruz, an employee at Red Cat Melissiana, leads me down a wood creaking staircase that ends in front of an enormous Kiva fireplace. Then she shows me the tunnels. The entrances have been blocked and the whole place smells slightly damp. It is 90 degrees outside but down here it feels cold. I’m happy to go back upstairs. Kat Pruitt, a writer and retired educator who also works at the store, tells me that she is planning a mystery novel based on the tunnels and their resident ghosts. “Go for it,” I say. “I bet it will sell well.”
AQuÍ En TAos It’s not just a slogan. It’s a way of life.
It’s not just a slogan. It’s a way of life. Since 1971, Taoseños have embraced our family and business. You could say the Mountain has accepted us . . . Thank you Taos, for 42 years and counting!
CONTINUING OUR COMMITMENT For nearly a century Chevron Questa Mine has been a member of the community. Even though operations have ceased and our focus is on final remediation and reclamation, we will remain a part of the area for at least twenty more years. We will continue to strive to be a good neighbor, sharing the concerns of our community, upholding safe practices at work and at home, and working to create a viable future. We continue to support local non-profits and fund initiatives that strengthen and invigorate the communities where we work and live. With the strength of our non-profit partner organizations, we are able to help make a difference. We salute the organizations that represent the traditions that play a role in bettering our community.
6 | Leyendas Courtesy “The Hog Farm and Friends”/Photo by Oxygen
“The Great Softball Game” taken at the Hog Farm in Penasco in 1969. One-Eyed John is up at bat.
A cross-cultural softball tradition The hippies and the Indians By Phaedra Greenwood
F
or 45 years, in the Peñasco area, the hippies and the Picuris Pueblo Indians have challenged each other to an annual softball game, a cross-cultural tradition that continues to this day.
According to a few elders from each team, this tradition began in the late 1960s. One version involves a traveling commune called The Hog Farm, from California, that settled for a while on a small farm in Peñasco.
The rest is history — or legend — according to who tells it. Fast-forward to 2003 when Nora Connor helped film a documentary about the annual Indian/ Hippie game in La Jolla (a tiny village near Ojo Sarco), tentatively called “Raw Dirt.” Connor says, “What better way for Americans of all cultures to come together than to play an all-American sport like baseball?” In the “Raw Dirt” trailer, the late La Jolla Bob (Robert McCormick) said, “This is how it began.” The hippies used to wander over to La Jolla, bring some beer and hang out. One day 10 Indians from Picuris showed up. A couple of them started tossing a ball back and forth. “I’ve got a bat – let’s play,” said Bob.
“We figure on losin,’ but hope to stay high,” Wavy writes. “We mix up a punch with the last of the green acid. Then make up the rules.”
Richard Mermejo, the current governor of Picuris Pueblo, said when the Indians first played baseball with the hippies “during the hippie rebellion” the teams didn’t have any names. Mermejo said he was a good catcher back in the day, but they rotated around. If the hippies were short on players, some of the Indians joined the hippie team. “We didn’t have any rules. We had an umpire. That was it. He rotated around, too.
I was on hand to witness this crazy game. To run the bases you had to negotiate a series of obstacles; to get to fourth base you grabbed a rope, swung out the attic window and slid down into a bucket of water. Then you rode piggyback on another player to reach home plate.
“La Jolla Bob spearheaded the games in Ojo Sarco,” he continued. “We drove there in a 17-passenger-van, packed in like sardines. There were no seats and the front windshield was broken out. When we got there, the hippies would call us over to their little camp. They
In his book, “The Hog Farm and Friends,” published in 1974 by Links Books, Wavy Gravy, the commune’s spiritual leader, said neighboring communes challenged the Hogs to a softball game.
would pass the cannabis around and then some wine. And then someone would say, ‘Okay, it’s game time! Let’s play ball!’ Naturally, we lost. “The hippies chose the field,” he says. “They let their goats and horses graze it down so it wouldn’t be so weedy. But when you’re in that state, you don’t really care. We lost some games and we won some games.” With the backing of the Pueblo, Picuris provided all the equipment: the bats, the balls, the bases and gloves and the catcher’s equipment. “The women from Picuris would bring a little food for after, and the hippies would do likewise,” Mermejo said. “Once the hippies roasted a bunch of chickens on some old bedsprings. We thought that was pretty funny.” Sometimes after the game the Indians would visit the local tavern. “People were surprised when the whole softball team swarmed out of the van like ants,” he recalls. The hippies and the Indians became fast friends. The hippies drove to Picuris to watch the traditional dances. Late Picuris pottery artist Joseph Duran said, “What the hippies meant to us Indians was to be down to Mother Earth, don’t be too capitalistic, share what you have, and go back to gardening.”
Leyendas | 7
Rick Romancito
I
A scene from a recent Picuris Smokes softball game at Filemon Sanchez Park in Taos.
n “Raw Dirt” the next generation of Picuris softball players, Waylon, Jerome and Kiko, explain that from the time they were knee high they grew up watching their fathers play softball with the hippies. That’s why, as young men, they took up the tradition. Dominic Garcia, a pitcher for their current team, the Picuris Smokes, said, “Now we’re also in the Taos Softball League. I have four kids who
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almost always make it to the games. We have a lot of support from the Pueblo.” (The “Smokes” are sponsored by the Picuris Smoke Shop.) During the Taos Softball League season this past summer, the Smokes played nearly 30 games. Who is their best hitter? “I’d love to say it was myself, but I don’t know for sure,” Garcia
said with a grin. “Some years we win and some we lose. It’s really competitive and always a lot of fun.” On a summer evening at Filemon Sanchez Park in Taos, Garcia is up to bat. He swings. Pops. The ball soars in a high arc out of the park. Someone cries, “Look out!” Heads up, kids! Here comes an old time tradition.
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8 | Leyendas
Bringing life to Sierra Vista Cemetery By Andrew Oxford
M
illicent Rogers could have been buried anywhere. She chose Sierra Vista Cemetery. Nestled behind an Allsups gas station and within earshot of the town’s busiest thoroughfare, the graveyard may seem an incongruously humble resting place for many of the larger-thanlife characters that dominate Taos history. But, as local artist Thom Wheeler points out, the likes of Rogers and Leon Gaspard are buried there beneath the dusty earth for the very reason they flocked to Northern New Mexico in the first place — they loved it. It is a similar love that is inspiring Wheeler and a team of volunteers to spruce up the overgrown cemetery. Nearly a century after the first graves were dug, many lots have been covered with juniper. Several dying cottonwoods have been cut down. The wooden fence that lines Paseo del Pueblo Norte is falling apart.
Thomas “Doc” Martin’s grave is on the corner of one path leading north from the gate, a marker protruding from a mass of local stone. Nearby on the same plot, a large slab is engraved with the words “Grand old grizzly of Tu-A-Ta / also dear Helen of Troy / and then some.”
helped maintain the cemetery. Last year, Tarleton asked Wheeler and volunteers to lend a hand in keeping up with the deteriorating site.
Rogers rests around the corner from Gaspard and Saki Karavas, who was once the proprietor of La Fonda de Taos and is buried alongside family members whose headstones include Greek inscriptions.
There are plans to plant new trees and install benches as well as informational plaques to guide visitors. Wheeler, who is a co-founder of the Taos Lilac Festival, helped plant several new lilac bushes at the cemetery.
A sculpture by Pueblo artist John Suazo of a woman reading sits atop the grave of librarian Mary Kilgore. Her husband, Dr. William Kilgore, was buried earlier this year to the north of her. The cemetery is mere blocks from the small adobe building where he practiced. The headstones range from extravagant or at least costly monuments, as is the case with Rogers, to handcarved blocks of wood. The federal government’s standard marble headstones mark the graves of more than 100 veterans, including a few who served in World War I. In all, Wheeler says there are 740 people included in the cemetery’s register.
Nonetheless, Wheeler maintains “Sierra Vista is a gem of a cemetery.”
“That’s 740 people who had a life, chose to live here in Taos, were part of Taos,” he says.
Its oldest plots, located on the east end, include the graves of painters who founded the Taos Society of Artists. Bert Phillips and E. Irving Couse are buried there, alongside Victor Higgins whose headstone is covered with a small curved sculpture reminiscent of the sheath he often worked beneath when painting plein aire. The grave of Oscar Berninghaus is to the north and Buck Dunton to the south.
The first plots were purchased in the mid-1910s, Wheeler says. The cemetery was originally predominated by Protestants. It has since been expanded but, slowly, the demands of maintenance grew too much for its board and families whose loved ones are buried there.
Walking amid the headstones, visitors can find names that should be familiar to anyone who has even passed through Taos.
How the land became a cemetery is not entirely certain.
It was the history, sculpture and flowers that initially intrigued Wheeler. His interest was not lost on Tom Tarleton, who had long
What has flourished since are countless plans to restore the cemetery to a place of prominence in Taos history.
A group of donors teamed last year to buy a new gateway. The sign resembles one which graced the cemetery’s entrance for decades before it was knocked down by a truck. The new sign is stronger, though, with a copper cap designed to stop rotting. There is little budget for such projects. Improvements are paid for as the money flows in, little by little, from a patchwork of donors. The basic work of cleaning up the site continues, too, with volunteers watering new flowers and clearing brush. The whole project is also a learning process, Wheeler says. Everyday spent working on the site brings forward a forgotten piece of history, he explained. It was a volunteer who, earlier this year uncovered Gaspard’s grave, long covered in juniper. But too few Taos residents are aware of the cemetery’s existence, much less that it is open to the public. Guides to Sierra Vista can be found on websites devoted to cemeteries such as FindAGrave.com. Intrepid tourists often visit in search of Rogers or other prominent Taoseños. But Wheeler hopes to make the cemetery part of the community — a part of the past connected to and perhaps even lending inspiration for the present. The Sierra Vista Cemetery is located on Paseo del Pueblo Norte west of the intersection with Sierra Vista Lane. Thom Wheeler can be contacted by calling (575) 758-8870.
Walking amid the headstones, visitors can find names that should be familiar to anyone who has even passed through Taos.
Leyendas | 9
Tina Larkin
Taos artist Thom Wheeler walks last winter with his wife, Lavinia, in the Sierra Vista Cemetery. Wheeler has helped lead a volunteer effort to take care of the long- forgotten cemetery.
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1 0 | Leyendas
Manby Hot Springs Not quite what the man envisioned, but a legacy nonetheless
Gak Stonn
Kids playing at Manby Hot Springs, along the banks of the Río Grande.
A
By Andy Dennison
s many as 100 natural springs dot the walls of the Río Grande Gorge as it slices through Taos County. The vast majority are of the cool-water variety — groundwater flowing from the west that flows out on the steep sides of the gorge. There is, however, a small cluster of springs with temperatures in the 90 to 100 degree F range that emerge at river’s edge between the John Dunn and Río Grande Gorge bridges. Hydrogeologists pin their origins to deep geothermal aquifers rising through vertical fractures caused by a nearby fault. It is here that we find the ancient, infamous and invigorating Manby Hot Springs. A cluster of three pools sits on the river’s eastern edge. Modern-day naturalists must drive five bumpy miles on Tune Drive to a parking area, and hike down a half-mile of old stagecoach grade to reach the springs. There, they can soak to their hearts content — clothed or au natural — while watching one of the West’s grandest rivers flow by. If that weren’t enough, add in the long and sometime sordid history of Manby Hot Springs, and you’ve got a true New Mexico adventure. As Craig Martin writes in “Enchanted Waters: A Guide to New Mexico’s Hot Springs,” “The story of Manby Hot Springs is a compressed view of the history of the state of New Mexico. The springs were used by the Pueblo people long before the Spanish sought to exploit its waters
for the dream of perpetual youth. After a long, pastoral interlude, the final chapter involves an Anglo newcomer who attempted to create a real estate boom by conning the longtime residents out of their rights to the land.” A pair of concentric-circle petroglyphs, said to signify the Pueblo name Wa-pu-mee, loosely translated “water of long life,” dates centuries of human use. Spanish colonial history tells us that Wa-pu-mee was among many candidates for the apocryphal Aztec fountain of eternal youth. The men and women of Taos were said to use the springs for washing and bathing. When the Chili Line railroad punched up onto the western edge of the Taos Plateau in the 1880s, the springs became one of Taos’ first tourist attractions. The train brought out-of-town lookie-loos to the area. They could catch the narrow-gauge train in Antonito, Colo., and be in Tres Piedras in about two hours. Or, they rode six hours from Santa Fe. There, they could disembark and, for a charge, board a stagecoach for the trip across the Río Grande and into Taos. The first Taoseños to exploit this situation were merchants Albert Miller and Gerson Gusdorf, according to Martin’s book. They built a bridge just downstream of the hot springs and cut a road up onto the plateau. They charged tourists and locals alike for crossing their bridge but showed little interest in the springs. One such traveler was Arthur Manby, an British ne’erdo-well who came West in 1890 to make his fortune. After much chicanery and underhanded dealings, Manby claimed the 66,000-acre Antonio Martínez Land Grant as his own — including the hot springs at the western extreme of the
grant lands. By the early 1900s, Manby’s problems in town grew and, according to Frank Waters’ biography of Manby, “To Possess the Land,” he escaped more and more to the solitude of the hot springs. “Next to the Martínez Grant, Manby loved the hot springs named after him,” Waters wrote. “Perhaps he loved the springs more; for if the grant was in reality only a nebulous domain, a projection of his imperialistic dream of empire, there was nothing nebulous about the hot springs.” As he soaked in the warm waters around 1922, Manby’s conniving mind conjured up another scheme: A world-class tourist resort known as the Lost Springs of the Aztec, with luxury hotel and the hot springs. “Should it develop, these springs are the long lost springs of the Aztecs, and the fact coupled with history seems to indicate that such a belief is well founded, then these springs … should ultimately develop into one of the world’s greatest resorts,” Manby proselytized in a prospectus sent to potential investors. No money was forthcoming, and Manby died of beheading among mysterious circumstances in 1929. The hot springs remain today, attracting tourists, locals and an occasional boater to rejuvenate in the mineral-rich waters. Visitors keep the rock walls intact and generally leave the place clean and welcoming. As for Manby’s legacy, all that remains are the ruins of an old bathhouse, traces of stagecoach roads and, if you believe in such things, the ghost of a headless, angry and destitute Englishman lurking about.
Sources: “Enchanted Waters: A Guide to New Mexico’s Hot Springs,” by Craig Martin; “To Possess the Land,” by Frank Waters; “Springs of the Río Grande Gorge,” by Paul W. Bauer, Peggy S. Johnson and Stacy Timmons; “The Train Stops Here: New Mexico’s Railway Legacy,” by Marci L. Riskin
As he soaked in the warm waters around 1922, Manby’s conniving mind conjured up another scheme ...
Leyendas | 1 1
Courtesy Carrie Leven
Joe Corriz of Santa Fe marked his name in aspen bark back in 1964.
The forest for the trees Arborglyphs tell stories of a changing forest
I
By Andrew Oxford
nnumerable lovers have proclaimed their passion by carving initials in the aspens of Northern New Mexico. J and C may have since parted ways but in the woods near García Park, you can still find a memorial to the love that drew them together in 1989. Carving up a tree is not just for lovers, though. Arborglyphs, as such carvings are known, tell a story of Northern New Mexico’s highlands. The carvings mark the movements of herders and, in some cases, are all that remain of abandoned mining camps. For example, arborglyphs dating from the 1930s and 1940s along Heart Lake Trail mark a path once used by shepherds, according to Carrie Leven, an archaeologist with Carson National Forest.
“They would come season after season. It would be the same teenage boys,” she said. Marking the trees, the herders in many cases would leave a name, date and hometown. Others carved “verse, a little story,” Leven said. Some arborglyphs are as much displays of calligraphy as anything else, herders having carved inscriptions in intricate cursive script around the trunks of aspens. Some arborglyphs include refrains, or sayings. Other carvings are illustrative. Arborglyphs have been found in Northern New Mexico depicting animals such as horses, deer, owls and pumas. Images of women are also common, if sometimes crude. Depictions of everyday objects, such as guitars, have been spotted, too. “If they were out here during the summer season, they have all that time on their hands,” Leven said. The traces left behind by Northern New Mexico’s early
20th century herders have not only led hikers in their footsteps but also led to a better understanding of the families that grazed here. Dates reveal what areas might have been used for certain herds. Sheep were more common in the 1930s and 1940s, Leven said. Most permits changed in the 1960s and cattle became more common. Names offer insight into where families were licensed to graze and what paths they used. Tracking down an arborglyph’s creator can be as easy as asking around town, Leven explained. If a young man herding sheep around Questa in the 1930s or 1940s is not still alive, their grandchildren likely are, she said. Starting with a name and date on the side of an aspen, researchers or the merely curious can better understand past generations and their relation to the forest.
Tracking down an arborglyph’s creator can be as easy as asking around town, Leven explained.
See arborglyphs, Page 13
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Photo courtesy Carrie Leven
This arborglyph dates back to Aug. 28, 1943 and was signed by a Johnny SanchĂŠz.
LEADER TIRELESS ENDURING PERSISTENT DETERMINED LEGENDARY Fourteenth Annual
Tradiciones El camino a travĂŠs del tiempo
Ernie Blake in January 1962, no doubt scanning TSV and thinking up some new trail names.
Leyendas The legends of Northern New Mexico have been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. They have braved the elements, endured hardships and created beautiful visions from blank canvases. They are the architects of the future and their stories will continue to endure the test of time.
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Archaeologists such as Leven call aspens baring arborglyphs “culturally modified trees,” nature touched by language and reflecting in some way the people who interacted with the land. For Worrell, the markings lend humanity to the forest.
T
From arborglyphs, Page 11
he woods around Red River abound with arborglyphs from a slightly earlier area, Leven notes. Prospectors and miners who made camps in the area during the early 1910s left their mark in the aspen trees. Some such arborglyphs led to old mine shafts or cabins. Others are all that mark what might have once been a mining camp. The carvings are a testament to the changing pathways that run through the forest. “Anywhere there might have been historic grazing, there are carvings,” Leven said. Many found in the Carson National Forest predate designated, maintained trails. That they are not far from
contemporary trails underscores the evolution of how Northern New Mexico communities have interacted with the woods. “It’s the same route that has been there for many years,” Leven said. Other carvings lead off trail, along paths now forgotten. Trappers made arborglyphs to mark their way through the wood and surveyors used the soft wood of aspens to mark corners. “I call it the woodland archive,” said Chris Worrell, an arborglyph researcher. “It such an untapped source of information,” he added, suggesting arborglyphs are pieces of social history — a people’s history of the forest. “These weren’t famous people,” Worrell said of the herders, trappers and surveyors who left their marks on America’s woodlands. “These may be the only marks they
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left behind on Earth.” Documentation of arborglyphs has taken off with the Internet. By sharing photographs and locations, online communities have been able to better understand people who were often marginalized in their own times. “These arborglyphs were often left by underrepresented groups — Hispanic herders, Basque herders, cowboys, Native Americans,” Worrell said. “Now, anybody can get out with a camera and document these things.” “Take photos, take a location,” he added. “It’s valuable genealogically, culturally and artistically.” Archaeologists such as Leven call aspens baring arborglyphs “culturally modified trees,” nature touched by language and reflecting in some way the people who interacted with the land. For Worrell, the markings lend humanity to the forest. “You get to know about these past lives,” he said.
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The missing and the haunted Ghost bars of Taos By Jim O’Donnell building can be haunted but can a building haunt a person? Sometime in the early 1990s there was a bar in Taos that served pretty much anyone of any age without any questions. The bar was in a basement with one window at ground level that looked out, through metal bars, onto a road. It was a dark place full of old men and a musty smell. I never got a welcoming smile but they served my friends and my 18-year-old self without ever asking our ages. After a 10-year hiatus from Taos, however, I could never find that bar again. I’ve asked numerous people and no one knows of the place. I’ve walked around town looking for it. I’ve searched for it in Ranchos and Seco, never with any luck. I’m not crazy. I went there many times. Can a bar itself become a ghost? In Taos it seems possible. The ghosts of many a bar continue to haunt this town. The ghosts of many bar patrons likewise hang around the bars we frequent. “A basement bar doesn’t ring a bell. But where the Byzantium Restaurant sits now there used to be a watering hole called La Loma Bar,” Taos historian Larry Torres told me when I called to ask about my ghost bar. “Somewhere in the past, two drunken lovers quarreled and the man stabbed the woman there,” he said. “She stumbled out and down along the street towards Ledoux leaving bloody hand prints along the walls and wailing all the way. “They call her La Llorona of Ledoux,” said Torres. “Some say the bloody hand print reappears briefly along those walls on the day of the dead.”
Now that is a ghost bar. But that wasn’t my bar. Near where Michael’s Kitchen presently sits, there was long ago a bar infamous for selling liquor to men from Taos Pueblo. According to Torres, it was really the only establishment that welcomed the original Taoseños. “There are stories of men coming in wrapped in their blankets and with their hair in ribbons. So I imagine it was quite a sight, especially for visitors,” said Torres. “But the ghosts came when the bar closed and for years drumming was heard coming from the building. “But why?” Torres wondered. He didn’t know of any specific reason it might be haunted. Could it have been El Gaucho Bar? That one sat about where the parking lot for Cabot’s Plaza and that of Eske’s Brew Pub and Eatery meet. Or wait. Was it El Gaucho? Yes. But it was also the Miramon at one time and then El Tío Vivo and then The Long Horn Bar and then The White Bar. According to Torres it wasn’t El Gaucho Bar until about 1961. Owned by the Archuleta brothers, the bar wasn’t known for any particular violent occurrence. But after it closed around 1970 people in the area began reporting female laughter and the scent of perfume in the air. This was another “why?” for Torres who has never been able to find pictures of the bar. “Why would this place be haunted?” There must be a story we don’t know yet. In the March 14, 2007 issue of the now defunct Taos Horsefly, in the Truth and Beauty column by Dory Hulburt, there is a reference to a Grace Graham King who came to Taos to study art with Walter Ufer. Apparently, on her first night in town she was sucking on a cigarette outside the Don Fernando Hotel when a man lurched to the ground in front of her, his guts spilling out near her feet. Evidently he’d been cut at El
Gaucho. Given that Doc Martin was the one who stitched the man the knifing had to have taken place sometime before 1930, meaning there was another El Gaucho that pre-dates the one Torres mentioned. Another ghost bar is the Columbian, formerly situated on the south side of the plaza. In 1880 Aloysius Liebert built the bar and added on a large lobby space that doubled as a dance hall. Twenty years later Robert Pooler purchased the hotel and bar and ran it until a drunk customer shot Pooler to death in 1909. “Pooler’s ghost seems to be angry,” says local ghost aficionado Melody Elwell-Romancito. “I guess you can’t blame him. I’d be mad too if I got shot.” According to Torres the actual oldest bar in Taos is the Alley Cantina. Several decades ago it was known as El Patio. Portions of the building might date back 400 years. Buildings that old are bound to be haunted. Sure enough “the kitchen area, which is the oldest might be haunted by Teresina, the daughter of Gov. Bent,” says Torres. Former owner Ruth Waterhouse told me that during renovations 20-plus years ago some very strange things went on. “When we started knocking holes in the walls things would mysteriously be moved. There were some brand new candle holders that seemed to light themselves. Later, we also had a number of female customers tell us they felt someone touch them when they were waiting for the restroom — and no one else was around.” The history of Taos is chock-full of bars that came and went. The bar I’m looking for seems to have vanished. The fact that no one seems to know anything about that basement cantina gives me the shivers. But not as much as being touched by a ghost would.
The ghosts of many a bar continue to haunt this town. The ghosts of many bar patrons likewise hang around the bars we frequent.
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Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), 104335
Interior of the Miramon Bar, Miramon Opera House, circa 1915. Pictured are bartenders Felix Sandoval and Alfredo Miramon, and standing at bar is Enrique Martínez, third from right, and Donaciano Gallegos far right. The other men are unknown.
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Steven Bundy
A cemetery in Llano de San Juan, with Jicarita Peak in the background.
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Jicarita and Wheeler Peaks Sentinels of Northern New Mexico
J
By Cody Hooks
fall of the United States’ topography meant the expansion of rails, commerce, and westward-moving Americans.
uan Estevan Arellano, local historian and author from Mora Valley, said that Jicarita Peak, that soft-sloping mountain south of Taos whose name recalls a bowl turned upside down, is the most beautiful mountain he’s ever seen. “It is the sustenance of life,” Arellano said. With waters flowing both east and west, Jicarita is a place of agriculture and tradition; shared livelihoods and shared histories. But Jicarita is an anchor, along with its neighbor to the north, Wheeler Peak. Their tops might not reach as high as the shear and jagged peaks of Colorado’s Sawatch or San Juan ranges (or even the Sangre de Cristos as they wind through the southern part of that state) but these two mountains draw together Taos’ history within the American landscape. After the Civil War, Congress sent four teams of geologists, naturalist, cartographers, and artists into the Western territories to meticulously catalogue and map the lands and people of the newly reunified country. As they traversed mountains and mesas, they inked in cities, rivers, and drainages. Lt. George Wheeler led one of the “Great Surveys” for seven years, from 1872 to 1879, during which he made his way into Northern and central New Mexico. The surveys, Wheeler’s included, even attempted to find the tallest mountain peaks in each state — America’s reach into the heavens. Those maps were instruments of industry. Knowing the rise and
All things considered, those late 19th Century scientists could make fairly precise measurements. But their calculations were made from lower elevations and with the standard technology of the time. As accurate as some measurements were, the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains were still blurry spots on the map. By 1916, a study of New Mexico place names catalogued some of the mountains of even remote Northern New Mexico. The study recalls the writings of Adolf Bandelier, the archeologist of the Southwest and the namesake of Bandelier National Monument — “the altitude of the Jicarita has not, to my knowledge, been determined; but the impression of those who have ascend to its top is that it exceeds the Truchas in height.” Bandelier’s “impressions” were contested by reports made by a USGS geographer, R.B. Marshall, who measured the Truchas peaks as the tallest in the state. Surveying continued in step with new technologies, and the maps of the area between Wheeler and Jicarita were revised many times over. The lives of New Mexicans around the mountains of Taos changed not because of some competition for the tallest mountain title, but because of the inward movement of industry and mobile Americans into the heart of the Land of Enchantment. Boom-and-bust Twining, a mining town, sprang up in the area that is now the Taos Ski Valley. Sheep, numbering first in the thousands and then the tens of thousands, grazed along the
slopes and fields of the Río Hondo and around Jicarita. The Santa Barbara Tie and Pole Company systematically stripped Jicarita of its timber, floating it down the Río Embudo to be cut and milled into railroad ties. Everyday Americans, even more than anglo artists, also made their way into this remote mountain terrain. According to Carrie Leven, archeologist for the Questa Ranger District of Carson National Forest, the road into Twining was paved in 1929, and people with cars, money, and spare time came to this part of New Mexico to explore. New Mexico was a well-known driving destination by the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, when war-effort jeeps were shipped back to the United States, adventurous Americans penetrated into the forests even further, driving on trails that had once been used mostly by hunters and rangers spotting fires. Those adventurers and car campers looted much of the archeological evidence of Twining — to say nothing of even older archeological sights — erasing the area’s history one valuable antique at a time. By 1955, Twining was gone, with Taos Ski Valley assuming its place. Wheeler Peak, so named by the United States Geological Survey in 1950, was declared unequivocally the tallest place in all of New Mexico. See SENtinels, Page 19
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Steven Bundy
Jicarita Peak, as seen from the village of Llano de San Juan.
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...there is an opportunity for renewed commitment to stewardship of this land. Jicarita and Wheeler, two of Taos’ most storied peaks, sit sentinel to the next 50 years of our relationship to the land.
Gus Foster
A panoramic view of the Sangre de Cristos, taken from Wheeler Peak.
W From SENtinels, Page 17
ashington again looked west to the Sangres, when in 1964 Congress passed and President Johnson signed into law the sweeping and legacycreating Wilderness Act. Northern New Mexico is home to two of those original, anchoring wilderness areas — the Pecos Wilderness, home to Jicarita, and the Wheeler Peak Wilderness. The creators of the Wilderness Act meant for the legislation to codify an appreciation of the quiet places and preserve for future generations those places in America where “the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.”
But there were no places in Northern New Mexico without the lasting imprint of human activity. The landscapes of both the Pecos and the Wheeler Wilderness had been heavily manipulated. Jicarita was overgrazed and over-logged, many of its resources depleted. And the area around Wheeler was home to the modern commerce of skiing. Yet the two anchoring wildernesses were also riddled with the story of dispossession — lands taken, folded into the public domain. Juan Estevan Arellano laments the changes he’s seen even in his own lifetime. He recalled going camping around Jicarita with his family as a boy, when most everyone they saw was a local. “We would just find an open spot. We didn’t have tents, so we slept under the open sky.”
But now, he says, “There’s no more open spaces. It’s all tourists and their Winnebagos.” Wheeler Peak is now one of the most visited places in Taos, and indeed the state. Kevin Lehto, an assistant recreation officer with Carson National Forest, said “when there is a wilderness within spitting distance of a city, there’s going to be a lot foot traffic.” It can be a uphill challenge to manage a popular and people-dense wilderness, where mechanized technology — even a mountain bike — isn’t allowed. But on the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, there is an opportunity for renewed commitment to stewardship of this land. Jicarita and Wheeler, two of Northern New Mexico’s most storied peaks, sit sentinel to the next 50 years of our relationship to the land.
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