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.

Click on the images to make them larger.

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.