It has been some twenty odd years since I, as a child, first peered over the north rim of Frijoles [Canyon]. This was not so long ago when one thinks of the hundreds of others, still alive, who passed this way before me. I do not pretend to be an ancient but the number of individuals who saw the Frijoles in those days are microscopic when compared with the multitudes who have seen it since. There is not sufficient room here to discuss those who knew the place in the early days, long before my time, except to mention such personages as Adolph [Bandelier], Charles Lummis, H. P. Mera, Edgar L. Hewett, Sylvanus G. Morley, A. V. Kidder, Jesse Nusbaum, Kenneth Chapman and many others who have distinguished themselves in the field of archæology or related fields. They all knew the place in its infancy, so to speak, and have contributed their share to the story of primitive [Pueblo] Indians who lived in the Valley of the Rito de Los Frijoles in times anterior to the coming of the Spanish.
As I remember it, there was a short-cut road into the Frijoles, little more than a cow path which left the Albuquerque-Santa Fe highway just on top of [La Bajada] Hill. It must have been fifteen miles across La Bajada [Mesa] west to the [Rio Grande]. Over the rolling hills of mesa-land the gears of our car ground a good part of the way in low until the little settlement of Buckman on the banks of the Rio Grande was reached. A man by this name, Buckman, used to cut and haul timber from the high potreros; he built a sawmill, and also a narrow bridge across the river here. It was a rickety old bridge with planks for runners but we got across. The winding, bumpy road led us up a steep climb from the Rio Grande to the forested land extending toward the high mountains. Once on top the mesa we drove between two of many high potreros and on into Water [Canyon] where the road followed the narrow valley for a few miles. We crossed a winding creek several times and drove through green pastures until the high-walled canyon became narrow.
Presently, the road turned to the left winding up the side of the mountain. Fortunately it was not muddy or we might never have made the steep grade. Once on top of the plateau the road headed south and a little west in the direction of Frijoles [Canyon] a few miles distant. We wound through majestic yellow pines, [piñons] and scrubby junipers. Here the road turned again and paralleled the Canyon for a few miles, up and down hills, ever twisting and turning. We drove to the top of an old trail which might have been used by ancient Indians some four hundred years ago. I walked to the brink of the Canyon, my mother constantly reminding me not to go too near. The height was terrific. It must have been six hundred feet to the bottom of the gorge—almost straight down. It made me dizzy. I had never seen such a thing before in all my life. It was to me a Hidden Valley and I wondered why any people wanted to come away out here to live—even [prehistoric] Indians. Of course, it was awe-inspiring but I was too young to be inspired.
There were saddle horses at the brink of the [Canyon] for folk who couldn’t or who were too lazy to walk down the trail. And then there were benches and tables underneath the pines for picnickers who wanted to eat either before they began the long descent into the valley, or after they returned from it. For years and years people walked or rode horseback up and down the steep old trail. Perhaps some never reached the bottom. Individuals came from all over the world. Some painted, some viewed, some fished, some wrote and some prayed to God that they might make it back to the top. Others, enthralled by the grandeur of the Canyon, desired to cast themselves off its rim into the mystery of its depth. I myself distinctly remember climbing down that old winding trail from the north rim. It seemed that we would never reach the bottom. The trail was a precipitous one, zigzagging and narrow, to the valley floor far below.
At a short distance across the narrow Rito we could see a little stone ranch house surrounded by huge pine trees and box-elders. A woman was standing on the porch probably wondering if we were to be guests for the night at the famous “Ten Elder Ranch.” But my father and I were fishing for mountain trout, and, if I remember correctly, it was he who caught the limit because he was the fisherman, not I. I might have been included among those unschooled people who had in their blood simply the desire for “pioneering” and “roughing-it,” but who understood little about what they saw.
This excursion of ours took place when roads in New Mexico were almost nil. A buckboard would have been better than an automobile with high pressure tires which blew out about twice a day. We broke an axle on the way home and had to spend the night on [La Bajada] [Mesa] between the [Rio Grande] and the highway in what was locally known as “Old Man Pankey’s Pastures.” The Valley of the Frijoles impressed me, then a little boy, and, I well remember the hundreds of smoke-blackened caves hewn out of the soft cliffs by Indians sometime in the dim past. But I knew not the significance of these caves. I knew nothing of the story of how [prehistoric] Indians lived four hundred years ago. They were merely blackened holes to me occupied by a people about whom I knew little. I remember the ruins of the big community house. It was located across the little river from the stone ranch house. I thought it foolish for Indians to build houses out in the sun when there were so many shade trees close to the Rito. I now believe that this first visit of my childhood created within me the desire to solve for myself the questions then arising in my mind concerning the [Canyon]. Since that time hundreds of famous personages have passed this way: artists, archæologists, doctors, botanists, psychologists, statesmen, preachers, governors, engineers, students and romancers, each finding satisfaction in his own particular line of interest.
Life in this place two decades ago can best be described by the owner of the old ranch, Mrs. Evelyn C. Frey, who has made Frijoles [Canyon] her home for twenty odd years. She can tell some very interesting stories about the early days. She knows the country and the trails, the flowers and the birds; and she still calls folks, who live thirty miles away, her neighbors. She recalls many lonely hours spent with her baby in the stillness of the Canyon. She remembers how the sun would go down over the south cliff at twelve noon and then how the day would change toward cold evenings and bitter winter nights. Ofttimes a howling wind would arise, then followed a calm, and in the morning a foot of deep snow. And there was no way out of the valley except over the old north trail. She tells how deer pranced around in full view, unafraid. Wild turkeys rested upon the wall behind the old ranch place and could be seen from her kitchen window. But she was never afraid and said she knew how to use a six-shooter if she had to. Mrs. Frey had told me many times, how, after a rough and tiresome drive from Santa Fe over fire trails, all supplies were packed on horses and mules and brought down to the floor of the Canyon.
A heavy pack mule, once upon a time, loaded with lumber, just didn’t make one of the sharp turns in the trail. It dropped one hundred fifty feet and went to mule heaven, bumping from first one level to another, lumber and all. The carcass was left for the scavengers of the air to feast upon. Mrs. Frey has described how she often bundled her tiny baby up in blankets to protect it from the cold on bitter winter nights, and, bearing the child in her arms she herself had swung into the saddle at the top of the old trail. The narrow path was covered with snow all the way down, and although she was afraid, the faithful horse had always carried them safely to their home.
The time came when pack horses were replaced by a cable-way strung from the north cliff to the floor of the [Canyon]. It was a thousand feet long and the tram-car was operated by a gasoline engine. This was the way supplies were brought in for the operation of the dude ranch—even the winter’s supply of wood. It was not until 1933 that the old trail was abandoned. At this time an automobile road was blasted from the side of the steep cliff in the lower end of Frijoles Canyon.
The history, if written, might prove far more interesting to many people than the prehistory. There would be some interesting tales to tell about folk and their affairs, but our main concern is with the prehistory. I do not think I exaggerate the situation when I say, despite a visitor’s interest or profession, most guests have come to Frijoles to visit the hundreds of ruins of homes built by the ancestors of some of our present-day [Pueblo] Indians. The [Canyon] and its extensive cliff dwellings and pueblo ruins are well-known the world over. [Neolithic] people, stone age people with implements of bone and stone and wood, lived here in ancient times and when they deserted their homes in the cliffs and on the valley floor, they left one of the most outstanding and spectacular sites in the southwestern part of America to be preserved for posterity.