Train Depot in Rowe, New Mexico

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Just a nice picture of the AT&SF depot in Rowe, New Mexico.  I vaguely remember the old steamers stopping by in the early 1950's when I was a kid growing up there. My wife found the image in a book at the Trinidad, Colorado library.

If you recognize any of the folks let me know. Just kidding.

The two (2) small buildings in front of the water tank in the bottom photo was a garage for the speeders and tool shed. The house facing the tank in the upper photo was where railroad employees lived. La casa de el cinero as it was known to the locals. (prouounced seenero in Spanglish).  The house visable in the distance on the lower photo was the house where Alejandro Montoya and his wife Cruz Dimas Montoya lived.

You can make out the road leading to the mesa on the left of the lower picture.

The water to fill the tank that was then pumped into the steam engines came from the Pecos river a few miles away. There was an under ground concrete storage tank and a pump there. The pipeline ran from there to the tank. The water line for the most part was in or right off the arroyo.

More on Las Ruedas and Pajarito, New Mexico

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Las Ruedas, New Mexico is one of two communities that existed on the old Los Trigos Land Grant. The other community was, or is,  Pajarito. The Los Trigos Land Grant lies between the boundaries of the Pecos Pueblo Land Grant and the San Miguel del Bado Land Grant at Gusano, todays South San Isidro, along and on either side of the Pecos River. The Los Trigos Land Grant was made on May 26, 1817 by Jose Manrique, acting governor of the province of New Mexico and confirmed by Alberto Maynes, governor of the province on June 22, 1815. It was granted to Francisco Trujillo, Diego Padilla and Bartolome Marquez.

Up to 1815 only a few acres of land had been tilled in the "arroyo de Las Ruedas" area. The community began to grow until 1829 when Vicente Villanueva sent an Indian boy also known as Vicente Villanueva , whom he had bought from the Comanches, to the Los Trigos area with a flock of sheep. Villanueva and a partner took some cattle to graze at El Canon de los Soldados. Suddenly, the Apaches swooped down on the Indian Boy and killed him, ran off the sheep, and continued on to the Canon de Los Soldados where Villanueva and his partner were also killed.

Las Ruedas was abandoned after the death of its most influential citizen.

The story of the Indian boy, also known as Vicente Villanueva, presisted and in time the people of La Cuesta had the name of their village changed at the request of the American postal authorities because there was another village north of Taos named Questa. The villagers decided on Villanueva to honor the name of the captive who gave his life in the defense of his masters sheep.

Anyway in the 1830's people from San Miguel del Bado and Santa Fe once again moved into the Las Ruedas and Pajarito area of the Los Trigos Land Grant. They were, as can best be identified, Antonio Maria Archuleta, his wife Maria de Jesus Lovato and his brother Nepomuceno Archuleta and his wife Maria Manuela Lovato, the sons of Vicente Antonio Archuleta and his first wife Maria Ignacia Angel. Miguel Sena and his wife Maria Ygnes Valencia were others who moved there. Matias Alarid, the son of Jose Antonio Alarid and Marcelina Quintana and his wife Maria Josefa Valencia also moved there.  Jose Alejandro Montoya, the son of Juan Jose Montoya and Juana Gonzales and his wife Francisca Lovato were another couple who moved there  as were Antonio Ortiz and others who moved into the area.

For the most part, these and other Hispanos with their families were the ones there when the Americans arrived in August of 1846. The village continued to grow until the late 1870's when construction on the Santa Fe Railroad started a few miles up the arroyo at the base of the mesa. By 1880 most of the families had moved to the railroad site at the new village of Rowe. My great grand mother Mariana Duran Archuleta was the last person to be burried at the Las Ruedas cemetary in the early 1920's. She was the the second wife of Juan de Jesus Archuleta who was the brother of Antonio Maria and Nepomuceno Archuleta who are mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Many descendants of these settlers still live in Rowe and the surrounding communities.

Note: Some information for this post comes from the book, Giant in Lilliput, the story of Donaciano Vigil by F. Stanley and the remainder is from information unearthed by my wife and myself.

1860 Las Ruedas, New Mexico

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The top (1st) image is the tail end of El Gusano, New Mexico and the begining of Las Ruedas, New Mexico. The first name in Las Ruedas is Juan de Jesus Archuleta with his wife Maria Anna (Duran) and their son Jose Ologio and daughter Cleta.

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This is the last part of a page for Las Ruedas, New Mexico and the first part of a page for the area between Las Ruedas and Pecos.  See if you can make out the other names.

Between both images it has all of the people enumerated at Las Ruedas, New Mexico in 1860. This was way before the thought of the railroad, so what is now Rowe, was not there, not yet.

There was a small group who went to the ruins of the old church at Las Ruedas on November 9, 2009. One of the latter day Archuleta descendants invited other Archuleta descendants to come along. And another descendant of  long ago Las Ruedas residents guided us in. It was a pleasant day and to be in the ancestral village and was an emotional experience.