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This is a picture of the Gross Kelly & Co. store in Rowe taken on August 11, 1918. Clearly the picture was taken in Rowe, the Picacho clearly visable behind the store. Other than that I do not recognize anything in the photo.
Rowe, what ever there was of the town in 1918 was 40+ years old, having been built as the AT&SF railroad came through. Prior to that the residents of Rowe were, for the most part, from Las Ruedas, down by the Pecos River.
This was the first Gross Kelly store. Later a second, or a third, building would be errected a bit further to the right of this picture and right in front of the AT&SF Railroad depot. Who knows who lived in the house next door pictured in this photo.
Gross Kelly was a big influence in the area around Rowe. Railroad ties were manufactured by the locals according to GK & Co. specs and sold to the company who in turn sold them to the Santa Fe Railroad who took them to a wood treatment plant to be treated prior to use on the tracks. The same goes for mine props and firewood, they were cut, delivered and sold by the locals to the store who in turn would sell them where ever they found a market. The store was operated as a Gross Kelly & Company store between 1910 and 1947, there after under different ownerships well into the 1960's. My mothers first cousin, Aaron Archuleta, worked at the store for many, many years and retired from there.
A good source of information on the Gross Kelly & Company is a book titled The Buffalo Head, A Century of Merchantile Pioneering in the Southwest written by Daniel T. Kelly with Beatrice Chauvenet and published by the Vergara Publishing Company in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1972.
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The man on the left is Harry W. Kelly (H.W. Kelly) and the person next to him is Carlos (Charles) Cramer. I knew Charles Cramer's, wife Mrs. Maude Cramer. She lived to a ripe old age and was the postmistress in Rowe in the 1950's. Carlos Creamer came to the Rowe area as manager of the GK & Co. store. His family did stay in the area and Mr. and Mrs. Cramer raised several sons in Rowe.
The other four people and the dog are not identified.
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These are the three folks who appear to be locals from the area. I do not recognize anyone, a bit before my time. But the boy appears to be 9 or 10 years old.
My padrino Jose Benavidez was living in Rowe and 18 years old at the time this photo was taken. My mother, Refugio Benavidez was 12 years old and my grandfather Roman Benavidez would have been 44 years ols and my grandmother Ignacia Archuleta 42.
2 comments:
My grandfather Carlos Creamer managed this Gross Kelly store in Rowe. I have seen this photograph and always thought the boy was Carlos' son, my Uncle Magarr (Mac) Creamer, who would have been around 8 at the time of this photo. Also,I've read "Buffalo Head" and thought it is a great window into the mercantile world of northern NM in the late 1800s. This is a great website- thanks M. Creamer-Ramirez
Could the man w the mustache be Robert Dean?
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