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.