USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume II > Part 50
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LOCAL HISTORIES
SANDOVAL COUNTY.
By the creation of Mckinley county, in 1901, and of Sandoval, in 1903, the original county of Bernalillo was reduced from one of the largest in the Territory to one of very moderate extent. Sandoval county located its county seat at the old established town of Bernalillo, a place of about 1,000 people, situated on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé road, in one of the fertile gardens of the Rio Grande valley.
Sandoval is the second county in the Territory, both from the north and the west, Rio Arriba and Mckinley adjoining it in those directions, and Santa Fé and Bernalillo counties on the east and south. Its eastern portions are chiefly watered by the Rio Grande and the Rio Jemez, one of its western branches, while its central and western sections lie principally within the water-shed of the Rio Puerco, a still larger branch of that parent stream. Both of these branches have numerous smaller tributaries, and the country is also well supplied with living springs. The county is not only broken and diversified by innumerable river valleys, but by short ranges of mountains, such as the Jemez, in the north, the Valles in the northeast, the Chaca Mesa in the northwest, and the Sierro Chiboto and Navajo in the southwest.
The population is principally settled in the valley of the Rio Grande, which in this county is particularly adapted to agriculture, horticulture and viniculture. Here, without exception, the fruits of the temperate zone find a kindly home. Apples, however, thrive better on the uplands than in the low bottom lands. In the mountain valleys this fruit can be raised without irrigation on account of the abundant rain, and the heavy snows of winter seem to improve its quality and flavor, especially the late varie- ties. Peaches, plums, cherries and apricots thrive better in the lower river valleys. The rich soil of these localities is also well adapted to corn, eighty bushels to the acre being no uncommon crop. Wheat flourishes both in the valleys and on the mesas. Outside of the Rio Grande valley that of the Jemez produces profitable crops of the cereals, melons and all kinds of vegetables.
The areas outlying from the Rio Grande and its tributaries are gen- erally well, grassed, rolling or broken by hills and canyons, and clothed with considerable timber. It is largely a country of sheep and cattle ranges, the hills, canyons and timber affording excellent winter protection for the stock.
As to minerals, the districts covering the Jemez and Valles mountains are rich in silver and copper. The former region also contains a num- ber of medicinal springs of great value, and when it becomes easier of access will undoubtedly become a favorite liealth resort. The Valles dis- trict developed, in 1893-4, into one of the most famous mining camps in the Southwest. Hundreds of locations were made and several villages
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established, of which the most pretentious was Bland. The region was named the Cochiti district, from an Indian pueblo of the locality.
Beds of excellent bituminous coal are found in the Puerco valley. It is so easily mined and handled that it pays to team it with oxen to Albu- querque and sell it as low as $4 per ton. The coal fields extend throughout the entire area of the valley, and in the northern part near Copper City (just over the county line), the veins are of unusual thickness, one of them showing twenty-five feet of clear coal, with no admixture of slate.
County Officers .- Since the organization of Sandoval county the fol- lowing officials have served, those for 1903 being appointed by the gov- ernor, and those for 1904 being elected :
1903 :- Commissioners, E. A. Miera, Ignacio Gutierres, Esquipula Baca ; superin- tendent of schools, J. B. Archuleta ; sheriff, Fred J. Otero-Alfredo Sandoval, the first appointee, not being allowed to serve, as he was not a holder of real estate; treas- urer and collector. Manuel Baca; probate clerk. O. P. Hovey ; assessor, V. S. Miera.
1904 :- Commissioners, Pantaleon Mora. Juan Dominguez, Pedro Castillo: sup- erintendent of schools, J. F. Silva; sheriff, Emiliano Sandoval; treasurer, E. A. Miera ; probate clerk. Marcos C. de Baca : assessor, Abel E. Pecea.
Towns .- Bernalillo, on the Santa Fé road, eighteen miles above Albu- querque, is the principal town in the county, as already mentioned. Pictur- esquely and favorably located, in the midst of a wide area of fruitful fields and orchards, it has been the residence of some of the most influential citizens of the Territory for many years. The town, with the rich country immediately adjacent to it. probably contains 3,000 people. It is located in the midst of a broad valley of rich alluvial land, largely devoted to the production of grapes and fruits, as well as agricultural products. Wine- making, fruit culture and wheat raising are the representative industries ; but outside the cultivable valley there is a wide stretch of admirable stock country, and the wool marketed at this point makes it one of the largest shipping points in the Territory. The Jemez river empties into the Rio Grande near Bernalillo, and the substantial bridge at this point leads to the road which follows the former stream to the Jemez Springs and Sani- tarium.
Wallace was at one time the end of a railroad division, but is now best known as the station for the Cochiti mining district, and also for Santo Domingo Pueblo.
Peña Blanca is a flourishing community, largely Mexican, on the east bank of the Rio Grande, at the head of the valley in this county, and a few miles from the railroad line. Above this point the river flows through a narrow canyon for about twenty miles called the Caja del Rio-the "box of the river"; it is also known as the White Rock canyon. At this point the valley land is exceedingly wide and fertile. Peña Blanca has been set- tled for many years, and until the abolishment of Santa Aña county, in 1876, was its county seat.
J. B. Block, proprietor of the famous Block's Hotel at Jemez Hot Springs, New Mexico, where he has resided for the past twenty-one years, came to New Mexico from Colorado in 1880. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, his grandparents being among the first white settlers of that place when it was only an Indian trading post, he left St. Louis in 1874 and spent all the time from 1874 to 1885 in train service of the railroads
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of the west. and running railroad eating houses. He opened up the first railroad eating house on the old Atlantic & Pacific Railroad in 1881, at Coolidge, New Mexico. He went to Jemez Hot Springs in 1885 and opened up a general merchandise store and hotel, and started a stage line to Albuquerque. He conducted the stage line during the summer season, until the last seven years, when he got the mail contract between here and Albuquerque. Since then, in connection with carrying the mail, the stage has been run all the year around. The mail contract expired July I, 1906, so he is no longer running the stage. Mr. Block's hotel is known most favorably all through New Mexico and Arizona, Mrs. Block being the mainstay of the hotel. He owns the larger part of the townsite, which was laid out by Jose Francisco Archuleta in 1884. Mr. Block got the postoffice established here under Cleveland's first administration, and the office was called Archuleta, in honor of the founder of the townsite. Mr. Block was postmaster until some time during Harrison's administration. Jose Felipe Silva, deputy treasurer and collector and superintendent of schools of Sandoval county, and postmaster of the city of Sandoval since May, 1905, was born at Las Conales, now Sandoval, in Bernalillo county, August 23, 1859. His paternal grandfather was Juan Jose Silva, whose wife lived to be one hundred and ten years of age. Their son, Jesus Maria Silva, father of our subject, served in the militia in the Civil war and had vouchers for land. He fought the Navajos during the period of hostilities and was actively connected with many events of importance during the early history of this portion of the country. He married Felicia Gutierrez, a daughter of Juan Jose Gutierrez. The father of our subject died in 1877 and the mother passed away in 1889.
Jose Felipe Silva was reared in his native city and has lived all his life here or in Albuquerque, having been a resident of the latter place from May 2, 1903, until January 6, 1905. He was employed there by the Gross-Kelly Company. He is the owner of thirty acres of land under cultivation, which is a part of the Alamada grant. This land was granted in 1710 and was approved by Congress. Part of the grant was sold by Francisco Montes v Vigil's heirs and the original tract was granted to Juan Gonzales, the great grandfather of Mrs. Silva. It contained about seventeen hundred acres. Mr. Silva has devoted the greater part of his life to farming and in addition has filled various positions of public trust. He was justice of the peace at Los Corrales for eight years and ditch com- missioner for eight years. He has been school superintendent since Janu- ary. 1905, and at the same time was appointed deputy treasurer and col- lector. He served as deputy sheriff in Bernalillo county under Santiago Baca for four years, and in May, 1905, was appointed postmaster at San- doval, which position he has since filled. He received the appointment of notary public by Governor Hagerman May 15. 1906.
Mr. Silva married Adela Gutierrez, a daughter of Francisco Gutierrez and Sista (Gonzales), and they have become the parents of fifteen chil- dren, eleven of whom are living, namely: Carina, Emilia, Leandro, Clo- tario, Candelaria, Felicita, Edwina, Ambrosina, Celia, Lezandro and James.
Vol. II. 24
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
TORRANCE COUNTY.
Torrance county was organized in 1904, from the eastern portion of the original county of Valencia. It lies almost in the geographical center of the Territory, and comprises some of the finest sheep lands in the West. Flowing springs are found in places, and water in wells is found from four to two hundred feet below the surface. As the water supply is evi- dently so near the surface irrigation by means of windmills has been in- augurated with most gratifying results as to the raising of vegetable and all garden truck. The average total precipitation is about fifteen inches per year, of which probably one-fourth is snow. Spring rains are com- mon, but not certain, the rainy season beginning usually about the Ist of July. Altogether, the climatic and physical conditions are about the same as in other sections of Central New Mexico, which are developing into productive areas of fruits, cereals and garden crops.
The Estancia Valley .- The most prominent physical feature of Tor- rance county, and the chief source of its material development, is known as the Estancia valley. It is an "L" shaped basin, about fifty miles long, north and south, thirty miles wide on the north and sixty miles wide on the south, and, with the exception of a few miles on the north the entire valley lies within this county, on the eastern slopes of the Manzano moun- tains. For the most part the land is a gently sloping or rolling prairie, the steepest incline being toward the mountains on the west, the water flowing from all directions toward the salt lakes in the south central part of the valley. East of a depression, which is almost paralleled by the Santa Fé Central Railroad and which has every appearance of once having been the bed of a flowing stream, is a line of varying low hills, beyond which to the rim of the basin, alternate valleys and hills. To the west of this depression the ground gradually inclines toward the mountains, the surface being generally, comparatively smooth until near the mountains, where it is corrugated with arroyas, which gradually widen and spread as they approach the nearer level land of the prairie. On the south, it is bounded by a low range of hills or mesas connecting the Manzano with the Gallina mountains. The soil is generally a sandy loam, easily culti- vated, and in the lower part of the valley it is quite light in color, resem- bling in appearance and composition the soil in the artesian belt on the Pecos river. This part of the county contains a growth of chamisa, a small evergreen bush almost impervious to drouth, which affords rich pasturage throughout the year. Elsewhere the valley produces the famous forage plant, known as gramma grass.
On the northwest boundary of the valley are located the famous Hagan coal fields, into which the Santa Fé Central Railway Company is now constructing a branch. Near the Manzano mountains, averaging in width about eight miles, is a fine body of timber, consisting of spruce, pine, juniper, cedar, pinyon, oak, cottonwood, quaking asp, willow, and hard or
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sugar maple. The saw timber is confined to the spruce and pine.
In the lowest place the valley is within a few feet of 6,000 feet above sea level. The highest peak of the Manzano mountains is about 10,500 feet above sea level, and the mountains make an abrupt rise of about 2,500 feet from the surrounding country, which, with the gradual decline, gives the valley an altitude varying from about 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level.
Compared with other sections of the arid west, some of which are now supporting thickly populated communities, nature has been kind to the Estancia valley. With the exception of a few miles on the southeast it is surrounded by timber. In the timber belt, near the mountains, are located seven sawmills, which supply building material in abundance at a reasonable price. Twelve miles east of Estancia are located the cele- brated Estancia salt lakes, which, from earliest history, have supplied the surrounding country, within a radius of one hundred miles, with salt of a very fine grade. These lakes are now owned by the New Mexico Fuel & Iron Company, composed of the same capitalists who built the Santa Fé Central Railroad, whose purpose it is to build a branch line to the lakes and establish refineries there. But the chief industry has been, is now, and will be until succeeded by agriculture and horticulture, that of live stock.
Railroads .- The Estancia valley is traversed its entire length by the Santa Fé Central Railway, whose termini are Santa Fé and Torrance, the latter, a station on the El Paso Northeastern Railroad. This road was com- pleted in August, 1903. The same company is now building a line from Moriarty, a station seventeen miles north of Estancia, to Albuquerque, known as the Albuquerque Eastern, and a branch from this line into the Hagan coal fields. The same capitalists who built this road have organized companies to extend it from Torrance to Roswell and to build a line from Willard to El Paso. The line from Torrance to Roswell has been located and the plats filed with the secretary of the Territory. The Atchison, To- peka & Santa Fé Company commenced the construction of the Eastern Railway of New Mexico, known as the "Cut-off," in 1903, and completed it in the winter of 1906-7. This line connects with the Atlantic & Pacific, a part of the Santa Fé system, at Rio Puerco, twenty miles west of Belen, on the Rio Grande, and with the Panhandle division of the same system, on the Pecos Valley line at Texico. It crosses the Santa Fé Central at Willard and the El Paso Northeastern at Llano.
County Officials .- The first Board of Commissioners of Torrance county was appointed by the governor, their service extending over 1904-5. They were: William McIntosh (chairman), Juan C. Jaramillo, and Blas Duran.
The following were elected for 1905-6: County Commissioners, Valen- tin Candelaria (chairman), Santiago Madrid. Pablo Maldonado; probate clerk, John W. Corbett: sheriff. Manuel Sanchez y Sanchez ; treasurer, William McIntosh : assessor, Parfecto Jaramillo.
Towns of the County .- Estancia, the county seat, is a growing little town, located at the famous Estancia Springs, from which it takes its name, sixtv-eight miles south of Santa Fé. on the Santa Fé Central Rail- road. The New Mexico Fuel & Iron Company are owners of the town- site. The roundhouse and machine shops of the railway company are
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located here, and the town has become the shipping point for thousands of lambs, who are annually transported to alfalfa districts for fattening, or to other feeding grounds in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, with the advent of cold weather. Estancia has a money-order postoffice. a modern hotel and a number of business houses. James Walker's store, built of cement blocks in 1905, was the first structure of the kind erected in the valley. Although not yet incorporated, the town contains a good school house, and the Baptists and Methodists are about to build churches. A block of ground 300 feet square has been donated for a court house and county offices, and the New Mexico Fuel & Iron Company have enclosed sixty acres around the Estancia Springs, with the intention of donating the tract for park and municipal purposes, when the place shall have been incorporated. New settlers are rapidly coming into the valley, to Estancia over the Santa Fe Central, and also overland, in the good, old-fashioned prairie schooner. Colonel George W. Harbin, of Waterloo, Iowa, has lately located a colony of old soldiers at McIntosh, in the valley north of Estancia.
That Estancia is abreast of the rapid growth of New Mexico is not only evident in the fact that she has an up-to-date newspaper (the News), but that in the fall of 1905 she organized a Board of Trade, with the following officers : President. F. E. Dunlavy; vice-president, H. B. Hawkins; treasurer, William McIntosh ; secretary. J. L. Norris. Besides the above, there is the Estancia Valley Development Association, organized, as its name indicates, with the purpose of exploiting the entire region, and of which John W. Corbett is president and A. H. Garnett, secretary. Be- tween the three. as is well expressed by a "special correspondent." "if any- thing good gets around Torrance county, it will have to hurry."
The town of Willard. located near the center of Torrance county, at the junction of the Santa Fe Central and the Eastern Railway of New Mexico, better known as the Belen Cut-Off, while still in its infancy gives promise of becoming a prosperous town. It is about twenty-five miles from the Manzano mountains, and it lies at an altitude of over 6,000 feet. Willard is the natural trading point of a splendid grazing country, and the entire tributary country is a large producer of wool, sheep, cattle and horses. The Willard Town and Improvement Company which owns the townsite, was incorporated July 25. 1905, with John Becker as president ; Wilbur A. Dunlavy, vice-president: William M. Berger, secretary, and Louis C. Becker, treasurer. The town was named in honor of Colonel Willard S. Hopewell, builder of the Santa Fe Central Railroad. The first lot was sold three days after the incorporation of the company, and the first school was opened in November.
Mountainair is located at the summit of Abo Pass, fifteen miles west of Willard, on the Belen Cut-Off. It is at the base of the Manzano moun- tains, in the timber belt of pine and cedar, and is attracting the attention of tourists. In this vicinity are the famous ritins of the ancient towns of Abo and Quarra which form a group with the Gran Quivera, as all show the same characteristics. The last named. however, are over the line in Socorro county. The site of Mountainair is controlled by the Abo Land Company.
Torrance is located near the southeast corner of the county, on the El Paso Northeastern railroad, and is the terminus of the Santa Fé Cen-
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tral. It is surrounded by a fine grazing country, with indications of valu- able mineral deposits in the adjacent territory. Duran is a station on the same line, east of Torrance, and Palma is a new town in the northeastern part of the county.
The above places are all new, and have come into existence with the railroads. The older places, near the mountains, commencing on the south, are as follows: Eastview, Punta de Agua, Manzano, Torreon, Tajique, and Chilili, all of which have public schools, and all, except Eastview, Catholic churches. At Punta de Agua are located the historic ruins of the Cuaro mission, the main walls of which are standing. Manzano is the Spanish word for apple, and at the town of that name are apple trees which the Spaniards found growing when they settled there more than a century ago. It is from these trees that both the town and the mountains derive their names. Pinos Wells, the oldest settlement in the valley out- side of the mountain towns, is in the east central part.
J. W. Harling, a cattleman of Estancia, was born and reared in Giles county, Tennessee. He spent three years in Texas and came to the Estan- cia valley in charge of cattle of the New Mexico Land & Cattle Company in 1883. This company had purchased the Antonio Sandoval land grant of four hundred and fourteen thousand acres, the headquarters of the ranch being at Antelope Springs. The company went out of business in 1891, and Mr. Harling then located on his present ranch in Buffalo draw, near Moriarty. New Mexico, where he engaged in the sheep-raising in- dustry for seven years. He then turned his attention again to cattle raising, in which he is now engaged,
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RAILROADS IN NEW MEXICO
The advent of the railroad era in New Mexico in the year 1879 meant more for the permanent prosperity and rapid development of the Terri- tory than any other event of the century. Transportation is now "the key to population ;" upon efficient and convenient methods of transporta- tion depend the forces of industry and commerce and all the numerous factors that are the very basis of modern civilization.
The following joint resolution of the Legislature, approved February 13, 1880, shows that the legislature did not underestimate the importance of the event :
"Resolved, That the legislature of New Mexico observes with pleasure and satisfaction the completion of a line of railroad to the City of Santa Fe, the capital of the territory. and the rapid extension of the same sonthoward through the great valley of the Rio Grande.
"That this eyent may well be regarded as the most important in the history of the Territory, and as the beginning of a new era, in which, through development of its resources and the improvements which are certain to follow the establishment of means of rapid communication with other parts of the country, New Mexico may be expected soon to take the position in the American Union to which she is by nature justly entitled.
"That in the celebration of the advent of the road to the capital, which took place on the 9th of February, 1880, participated in by the representatives not only of the city of Santa Fe, but of the whole Territory, this assembly recognizes an evi- dence of the good will and progressive tendency of the whole people with regard to the important improvements and changes which are now at hand."
The importance of the railroad is well stated in Governor Otero's report for 1903. from which the following paragraphs are quoted :
"Early in the spring of 1879 it was the fortune of the writer to pass through the Territorial empire of New Mexico from Trindad, Colo., to Las Cruces and Silver City, in the extreme southern part of the Territory, tediously traveling the entire distance of upward of 700 miles in old- fashioned stage coaches at the rate of about five miles an hour. Less than two years later he passed over part of the same route, but the slow going and toiling stage coach had disappeared, and he rode in the very heart of the historic and resourceful region in a palace car, which left the Missouri river less than two days before and conveyed its passengers with as much comfort and far less fatigue than is experienced in making the journey from New York to Chicago. The wonderful rapidity with which steel rails had been extended into this sparsely settled country of magnificent distances was not more marvelous than the many striking manifestations on every hand of an astonishing awakening from the slumber of two centuries, attributable to the inspiring and stimulating influence of railway lines, bringing the long-neglected Territory into close touch with the en- lightened progress and fruitful modern methods of the Eastern states.
"In the early history of the utilization of steam for transportation pur-
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poses it was supposed that a country must be settled and developed before it could support a railway, and those who projected new lines followed the great routes which internal commerce had already established for itself and whose facilities it had outgrown. The pioneer railway builders sought to connect the large towns, and to secure a traffic already important and likely to grow. Soon after the close of the Civil war this theory was abandoned, and the railway has since been the advance agent of civiliza- tion in the country. It has pushed out into countries that were almost destitute of population and which had not felt the stimulating influence of outside capital, following close upon the trails of government exploring expeditions, whose reports of developed natural resources and descriptions of scenic and climatic attractions have been among its most important guides.
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