A 2009 Trip To Las Ruedas, New Mexico (A Ghost Town)

Joe Encinas and Victor Ortiz Jr. worked with Gilbert Ortiz to make this visit possible. The old Las Ruedas town site on the Pecos River about a mile from Rowe. Ms. Jane Fonda was the owner of the Los Trigos Ranch at the time (2009) when the visit occurred. There is not much left and the town site is private land, it used to be part of the old Los Trigos Land Grant.

Donna and I found out about the planning for the visit and asked if we could come along. An interesting occurrence was that everyone who ended up there, with the exception of Donna, were related through the Archuletas.

My maternal great grandmother Mariana Duran Archuleta was the last person buried there sometime in the 1920's. Her body was brought to Las Ruedas from Rowe for burial.

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Joe Encinas on the left and his dad Ruben Encinas on the right. Joe took this picture as well as the ones that follow. Ruben came up from Southern New Mexico. Joe was working on the Gila National Forest at the time, he is now in the Washington Office of the U.S. Forest Service..

On the left Victor Ortiz Jr., the late Gilbert Ortiz in the middle and Victor Ortiz Sr, on the right. Gilbert was the foreman of the Los Trigos Ranch owned by Jane Fonda where the old town site and church/cemetery ruins is located. It was good to see all of the Ortiz folks.

A corner of the old rock fence for the church and graveyard. It is crumbling and if it had not in the hands of Jane Fonda it would probably all be gone. I hope somehow it could be preserved, but I doubt it.

Another view of the rock wall around the old church site and cemetery.

Pot shards, more than likely of Indian manufacture as the New Mexicans did not do much, is any, of this.

Miguel Armijo

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I was "searching" the internet the other day and bumped into this image of the June 26, 1974 edition of the Santa Fe Reporter. It was their very first issue and guess who was on the front page. An old family friend, now long gone, Miguel Armijo.  But I remember Miguel, he was quite a guy, always thought different than the rest of us. We could go and/or come along if we wanted to but he was going ahead anyway. Miguel was a distant relative but very close to the family anyway. More so than some closer relatives.

I remember him as El Asomodeo, second in command to Lucifer himself in Los Pastores in Rowe back in the  late 1950's and early 1960's. He was Juan Diego in the local production of the presentation of Nuestrs Sra. de Guadalupe that my mother, Rufegio Benavidez, used to put on back then. Miguel made one hell of an Asmodeo and an even better Juan Diego. Rosina Archuleta (now Herrera) was always cast  as Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. There were several "gilas" in los Pastores that I recall.

Miguel always seemed to be ready to help with the productions and was a willing and very good actor. Sort of a natural at it.

I remember that he had a pair of oxen that he had trained and used in parades around the area. The only functioning oxen I have ever saw. Seen plenty of horses and some mules a couple of times, but  he had the only  oxen team. I figured out the word "buey" from him.

Miguel was also an "hermano", he would pick us up when we were to go to the Morada at Las Colonias for a service or for a regular meeting of la Hermandad. 

Anyway, bumping into this picture brought back many memories de Miguel. Que descanse en pas.

Las Ruedas, For Sale Again

The old Las Ruedas town site is the grassy area on the upper right hand of the picture.  Click on the image(s) to make them larger.

Las Ruedas is for sale again. Jane Fonda put it up this past week. Here are some photos of Las Ruedas and environs today.

I last visited the area a few years ago with some relatives who had arranged with the ranch foreman, the late Gilbert (Gille) Ortiz, another Archuleta descendant, to visit the site. Gilbert led us down and briefed us on the site as he was probably the best informed. He had worked the ranch since he was in high school.

Las Ruedas was one of 3 small Hispanic villages on the old Los Trigos Land Grant.  The others being Pajarito and Los Trigos. The only one still in the hands of descendants is Pajarito. Las Ruedas is about 2 miles away from Rowe, New Mexico and I-25.

Anyway, Las Ruedas is long gone. The last person buried in the old cemetery is my great grand mother Maria Ana Duran. Her husband, Juan de Jesus Archuleta is most likely buried there also. No way to identify the few graves still visible.

This is one of the several houses and out buildings on the property for sale.

The grassy area to the right is immediately below the old Las Ruedas town site.

Jane Fonda is letting go of her New Mexico ranch, "a sanctuary and a place of great joy" known as Forked Lightning.

"The ranch encompasses 2,300 acres outside Santa Fe, and includes 3.5 winding miles of the Pecos River. The actress and activist bought the property -- part of a larger historic ranch once owned by oilman Buddy Fogelson and his wife, actress Greer Garson -- back in 2000. She is asking  $19.5 million. That includes the 10,000-square-foot River House, which is the main residence; a 2,000-square-foot guest house dubbed the Hacienda; and a 3,500-square-foot Log House, where Fonda lived while she was building the River House."

To have $19.5 million laying around. 

Alas, the old home of my ancestors will change hands again. My hope is that who ever buys it takes care of it and allows some limited access to it for folks wanting to see where their ancestors once lived.

Our New Mexican History is like a Multi Dimensional Puzzle

Our New Mexican history is a huge multidimensional puzzle. It  is made up of the people. This includes and included mostly Hispanic New Mexicans, Native Americans, a few Africans and later French. Lastly, starting about 1810, the Americans.

This history includes the land, New Mexico, and the lands our ancestors utilized. We must keep in mind that initially New Mexico was huge, huge! It has been shrinking ever since the Spanish took possession of the province. Initially, as part of New Spain, it included everything west of the Mississippi all the way to the Pacific Ocean and north to places unknown. On the south it was bounded by the Rio Grande (El Rio Bravo del Norte).

This history also includes time, for Hispanic New Mexicans, our history in the area starts  in 1527 with Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. It proceeds  through 1540 with the explorations of Francisco Coronado and others and then begins in earnest in 1598 with don Juan de Onate and our ancestors who came north from Mexico to establish the colony. It includes the expulsion of our ancestors by the Native Americans in the 1680 revolt. It encompasses their return, with additional settlers who again came north, this time led by don Diego de Vargas in 1693 -1695. The revolt was by the Native Americans and some mixed Spanish/Native Americans and the expelled included most of the Spanish and some Native Americans who had embraced Catholicism. A mixed bag as we say today.

The New Mexican land was vast, though shrinking over time, it was still vast. The time was long, interrupted at various intervals, but still very, very long, 1527 to the present. Almost 500 years. The people, our ancestors, were few. Very few, especially when taken into the perspective of time and space. The actual numbers never amounted to much until here recently. And those numbers have dispersed all over the country and many foreign countries.

And they all fit together, not real neat, but they all fit. Just like a multidimensional puzzle. The most interesting to me is the people, our ancestors. Since they were few it is possible to find out who they were, when and where they were born and how they lived and died. Their trials, the hardships, the triumphs. Like it or not we ended up being related by blood to one degree or another. The poor, the rich, the educated and the illerate, we all ended up related. Como luego dicen, una gran familia.

Our New Mexican history is not like American history. Not at all and not in the least. The "Americans" were scattered (concentrated) over a much smaller area with much greater numbers and a much reduced time frame. The American history starts about 1620 and proceeds from there. This is 93 years shorter than our history here in New Mexico! 93 years shorter and millions upon millions of people coming from many countries and the African continent. Santa Fe was an established place way before the first "Pilgrim" set foot on Plymouth Rock. The Americans in the then America came in droves, in huge human waves from all over Europe and Africa.

Not so our ancestors, they came and stayed and added a few here and there. But so few were added that you can identify them, sometimes individually, as you look at the historical documents. You can identify the "heroes", the idiots, the priests, the church goers the nay sayers the soldiers, etc., etc.

One bad thing about this is that the New Mexican population(s) remained stable, or grew very slowly. The New Mexicans had great difficulty getting people, any material needed and direction from the center of government in far away Mexico or Spain. As a result time seemed to stand still between 1598 and about 1810 when the "Americans" arrived. They came with their new technologies which New Mexicans had only vague ideas what they were.

Native Americans in New Mexico were essentially stuck in the stone age. Dependent on Hispanic New Mexicans for any thing that did not grow or was born locally. That includes the horse that changed the way they lived. All of a sudden, with the arrival of the Spanish, they were a stone age people but now were mounted on a horse.

This is what the Americans found in 1846 when they captured and annexed New Mexico. The Americans had known how many New Mexicans there were and how many ancient weapons they had. It would and was a cakewalk taking control. And that is what they did.

Rowe, New Mexico Neighborhoods in the 1950's

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La Sagrada Familia Catholic Church in Rowe, New Mexico

Yes, even a town with fewer than 300 people had neighborhoods or barrios and the neighborhoods had names, especially in New Mexico. There was no east side, south side or any other side for that matter. There was no bad part of town, there were just different neighborhoods. And besides, for the most part we were all related in one way or another. There were very few folks that weren't related.

1. El Switche - Because of a switch in the railroad tracks is my guess. The E.T. Padilla and Trader Horn stores were located there. The post office and the AT&SF Train depot were located in that neighborhood.
2. Los Colles (Coyes) - Down the road heading toward the Pecos River. Old Indian pit houses were located in the vicinity and may have had something to do with the name.
3. El Rincon - This Neighborhood was located at the base of Rowe Mesa as you drove out of town towards Las Vegas. It was sort of tucked away in the woods at the base of the mesa.
4. Abajo or Las Caleras  - This neighborhood was located across U.S. 85 and the AT&SF tracks from El Rincon. There was a place where you could get cal (calsomine) at some bluffs by the arroyo.
5. Aya Arriba - This was located between the roads going to Santa Fe and Pecos. It was called Arriba because you had to go up the road. Mostly the Atliano Ortiz family and their relatives there.
6. Rowe proper - This was the rest I guess. The neighborhoods that did not have a name fell in here. Included the areas by the church and the old schoolhouse.