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Trivia,
Memories, and Miscellaneous Musings
Madrid, NM—A Look Back
By Bruce Hawkinson, Sandia Park
(Author’s Note: After interviewing Madrid owner Joe Huber, I wrote this article for the June 1, 1973 Sandia Lab News. We’ve included it in our website because Madrid is a popular destination for many of East Mountain residents. Please keep in mind that it reflects conditions some 30 years ago, when the town was up for sale. The last section below brings you closer to the present time.)
Madrid, New Mexico’s usual label is ghost town. With reason. Abandoned homes—windows broken, doors swinging, walls that can’t remember paint, roofs that no longer protect but simply sag. Every year the pinons creep farther down the hillsides.
But it’s not totally abandoned. The outskirts may be empty, but downtown is really very much alive. The filling station, the antique shops, the saloon-restaurant, the coal mine (now a museum) attract a constant stream of visitors and patrons.
Memories of the way it used to be are strong. Nostalgia is the antique shop’s stock in trade. The saloon is dim and large—anything but intimate. It was built to accommodate a minefull of hard-talking, hard-drinking, hard-coal men on a Saturday. Even a good crowd of tourists doesn’t fill the vacuum they left behind.
The museum costs 50 cents (kids free). And here the way it used to be is strong indeed. The visitor wanders among a bewildering array of mining equipment. Much of it was used on the surface, but other pieces were used to work the underground coal seams.
* * *
Mining began in Madrid about 1835, but it was the arrival of the Santa Fe railroad through Glorieta Pass that made commercial production feasible (in 1880 or so). Coal was vital to the new railroad—a spur track from Madrid to the mainline at Waldo made delivery simple. [Waldo is now just an exit from I-25 south of the rest area a few miles south of Santa Fe; when I-25 was designed, Waldo was supposed to be a Santa Fe suburb; you can drive from Waldo to Cerrillos.] Madrid was unique in those days: its coal mines produced either anthracite (hard) or bituminous (soft) coal—in fact, the No. 1 mine featured bituminous on its left side, anthracite on its right. Whichever the demand, Madrid could fill it. Production reached a peak in 1928 when 87,000 tons of anthracite and 97,500 tons of bituminous departed Madrid by the trainload.
Production declined slightly, then rose again in the early 1940s when a remote boys’ school in the Jemez Mts. doubled its usual order, then doubled that, doubled it again, and still needed more. “My dad probably knew what was going on [at the place we now know as Los Alamos],” says Joe Huber. His father bought Madrid in 1947, and Joe’s recollections are vivid. “I don’t think the men did though. They just knew a lot of coal was moving out and that the number of men on-roll was climbing back up to the 750-man peak it had reached in the late 1920s.”
Just as the arrival of the railroad started it all, the arrival of natural gas after WWII signaled the end. By 1959 the mines were shut down completely. And Madrid went from company town to ghost town.
* * *
In its heyday, Madrid left its mark on New Mexico. From 1920 until 1950 it boasted one of the finest baseball parks in the state. It featured New Mexico’s first electrical scoreboard (electricity was cheap—the generator was power by “bugdust,” fine grains of coal that had little market value). The ballpark was one of the first to sport electric lights for night games. And the Madrid ballclub was one of the saltiest in the area. How could a man swing a pick all day and then swing a bat—well—at night? Simple. Like many college athletes today, the good ballplayers somehow managed to end up on the softer jobs—no hardrock stuff for them: the reputation of the town was at stake.
Madrid had culture—the band was known, if not heard, for miles around—and aesthetics too. The Fourth of July celebration was dynamite—literally. Every year the powdermen came blinking out of the mines to rearrange a mountaintop or two as a climax to the fireworks display.
But it’s the Christmas decorations that old-timers remember best. The practice began on a small scale in 1922; by the late thirties no New Mexico Christmas was complete without a trip to Madrid to marvel at the dioramas, wreaths, and decorated pinons—with the whole valley bathed in the light of 40,000 light bulbs. A hundred thousand people used to gape through the town, some by car, some by special train. And, reportedly, some by commercial airplanes whose pilots just happened to get a bit off course. The lights were turned off for the last time on Dec. 7, 1941, the day of the attack at Pearl Harbor.
* * *
Madrid is unique today [1973] too. Until last month, all the buildings and all the land were for sale, lock, stock, and specter. The new owner, Fred Ballentine, is a ghost town buff who intends to restore buildings that are structurally sound to their turn-of-the-century condition. And he plans to upgrade the museum so that visitors no longer will spend half their time asking, “Now what was that used for?” If he can get some of the old-timers (like Pete Garcia or John Ochoa) to assist the new curator, he’ll end up with a first-rate museum. Ballentine plans a “quality tourist” area that reflects as faithfully as possible Madrid’s early period. “Even the eventual 200- to 300-room hotel will be build in 1890’s style,” he states. He’s saying the right things—in fact, he’s already stopped calling in MadRID and now says MADrid, as the locals do.
So Madrid is on the upswing again—if you want to see it the way it was, now’s the time.
END OF ORIGINAL STORY
Madrid Today
Today, in the middle of the 21st Century’s first decade, Madrid seems to be a village that is doing well by catering to tourists from the East Mountains, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and across the country who are looking for a unique shopping experience in a unique setting. Most of the buildings in Madrid that can be salvaged have been salvaged and are being used as shops or homes.
During the summer, the ballpark is the site for several concerts—even a few ballgames. The soda fountain in the xxxxz shop is a favorite of many locals. And, though you probably can’t buy a pair of shoes or a bag of flour in town, you can buy all kinds of memorabilia, including various New Age amulets.
For decades, the town’s social center has been the Mine Shaft Tavern. Here’s what the Tavern’s chatty menu says of the town:
When you “belly up to the bar” at the Mine Shaft Tavern, you will be served from the longest stand-up bar in New Mexico. In 1944 the construction of the Mine Shaft Tavern was begun, the last of the “company town” buildings erected. The 40-ft. lodgepole pine bar, as well as some of the tables you see, were here in 1946 when the Tavern first opened its doors.
Although you may now partake of lunch or dinner, little has changed since the mining heydays. The Tavern was built by Oscar Huber, who became mining superintendent in 1919, and who established the Albuquerque & Cerillos Coal Co. He bought the town lock, stock, and mineral rights. Paintings above the bar by renowned Sandia park artist Ross J. Ward (creator of Tinkertown Museum) colorfully portray Madrid’s rich history. (The Latin phrase on the angel’s banner, freely translated, reads “It is better to drink than work”—a call to the weary miners!)
In 1959 when Los Alamos, Madrid’s last major coal contract, switched to Public Service, the town that had been home to some 3,000 people during the peak production years of the ‘20s and ‘30s became, virtually overnight, a “ghost town” of 13! It remained that way until the mid ‘70’s when Oscar’s son Joe sold the miner’s shacks (in what may have been the world’s greatest “yard sale”!). Madrid’s revitalization was documented by Harry Reasoner on TV’s “60 Minutes.” Madrid’s current talented population at 600, with 200 residing in town and the rest “out on the land.” The Mine Shaft Tavern, purchased from the Coal Company and restored in 1982 is open seven days a week at 11 a.m.
* * *
Continuing into the Old Coal Mine Museum, you will step back into a time when the last train carrying Madrid coal left town and everything ground to a hasty halt. The few houses still occupied were evacuated, the lights in the few stores still operating were turned off for the last time. At the “nerve center” of the whole mining operation (now the Old Coal Mine Museum), offices were deserted. These few acres, which once controlled 9,000 acres of underground works, are essentially intact after more that 40 years. The Museum, on five browsable acres, preserves mining and railroading relicts (as well as vintage vehicles) of the days when the economy—and survival—of the area was dependent on both. The focal point of the Museum is Engine 769. This Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad engine was built in 1900 and purchased for the now incredible sum of $18,000! . . . Engine 769 is currently the most complete non-operating steam locomotive in the United States. The Museum is open every day year-round, weather permitting.
* * *
When you step into the Engine House Theatre, you enter the old locomotive repair building. The Theatre burst into life on Memorial Day 1983 by reviving melodrama in the Ortiz Mountains. This may well be the only theatre in the world with a full-sized steam engine nosing onto the stage! The stage and balcony were constructed from recycled relics, salvaged railroad track. The original track can still be seen in the back seating area. Classic turn-of-the-century melodrama is performed every weekend from Memorial Day through the Balloon Fiesta.
My “Connection” to Madrid
When I interviewed Joe Huber, I asked him why most of the town’s buildings at the time were identical—small, rectangular crackerboxes, unpainted for decades and slowly decaying. He said that in the 1920s or 30s, his dad had contracted with the owner of a then-closing coal mine in Osage City, Kansas, to buy several dozen houses and have them shipped by rail to Madrid to serve as miners’ homes. They served their purpose but were vacated after the mine closed. (Most have since been purchased from whatever entity now owns the buildings and the land under them, and many are now serving as businesses or as homes again.)
When my grandfather emigrated to the US in the late 1890s, his first job was in the coal mine in Osage City. As I visit Madrid, I always find myself wondering whether Grandpa once lived in one of those crackerboxes.
HOUSES weren’t luxurious, but were adequate for a family or several single miners—and the commute to work was easy.
MADRID is located in a charming mountain valley about 25 miles north of the Frost Road-North 14 intersection.
THIS LOCOMOTIVE once hauled coal cars to the Santa Fe mainline. These days it sometimes makes an appearance in melodramas (you know, the ones with the beautiful heroine tied to the railroad track by the cruel villain she’s rejected).
Just Charter a Wrecker for a Tail Car
Just a decade or so ago, Highway 536 was the east end of what was then Highway 44, which stretched from here to Bloomfield, in northwest New Mexico. On NM state maps, Highway 44 looked like a scenic alternative for travelers from the east who wanted to avoid Albuquerque traffic and get to, say, Durango, CO. So travel planners, such as AAA, prepared routes for travelers (many of them in 40-foot RVs or towing 30-foot travel trailers) That routed them off I-40 at Tijeras, sent them north six miles, then west and northwest via Highway 44.
That means they traveled up the paved highway to a point a half mile or so above the Sandia Peak Ski Area, then down a very scenic but narrow, bumpy, twisting, steep, and sometimes muddy, sometimes snow-blocked 10 or so miles down Los Huertas Canyon past Sandia Man Cave and (sigh of relief—IF they made it!) into Placitas, at the north end of the Sandias. Many of these “big rigs” were not able to make it without getting stranded; hence, emergency phone calls for help; hence, complaints to travel planners; hence, outrage at the NM Highway Department; and, finally, hence, the birth of Highway 536 and this sign west of the Triangle:
CAUTION
MOUNTAINOUS
UNIMPROVED ROAD
7 MILES AHEAD
HEAVY TRUCKS
SEMI TRAILERS
HOUSE TRAILERS
PROHIBITED
(Hiway 44 is now 550, a four-lane road from Bernallilo to Bloomfield.)
My choice for the most memorable road name in our area is Four Wheel Drive.* it’s a fitting name; it’s steep—without four-wheel drive and/or tire chains, you’re not going to make it home sometimes. In fact, as I can attest, you can be driving forward and skidding backward simultaneously. Not pleasant. (Anyone know who gets credit for the name? Call me.)
* Four Wheel Drive goes south off Ranch Road, which heads east from Cienega Canyon Road, goes up over a steep hill, descends into a secluded valley where several of our members live, then dead-ends at the Ponderosa Estates fence; actually, it dead-ends for us—it really ends on Hiway 14.
My choice for second-most-memorable road name out here is not in our community, but it’s pretty close to it. Go east on Frost Road about 0.6 miles from Hiway 14, and you’ll find Lois Lane!
One of our nearest (and best) restaurants is Kokopelli’s (a half mile north of the Triangle). But you still hear the mountain old-timers call it Pete’s. Now why is that? Pete Jojola was a local boy who realized there was money to be made by catering to hungry skiers heading home from a day on the Sandia Peak Ski Area slopes. He set up a push-cart site on what’s now Hiway 536 near the Cienega Canyon Road intersection, and he did a pretty good business. Good enough, in fact, that he leased a place in the vicinity of what’s now Cedar Point Grill. Pete was a good cook and a natural at relating to customers. So his business was thriving—until Hiway 14 was widened and straightened in the late 1970s [see NM 10 vs. I-10 item below] and his restaurant was in the path of the bulldozers.
Pete then moved temporarily to the Windmill Bar and Restaurant*— he was, in fact, the restaurant, Tom and his son Mike Coyne owned the bar (and Mike may have been its primary patron). Pete served some pretty wicked Mexican food—I remember that part of his new, upscale décor was a little stream that was pumped through a concrete-lined “canal,” complete with goldfish, around part of the restaurant. One night I ordered a dish that, I realized too late, a gringo should never order. I ended up desperately scooping glass after glass of water right out of the “canal” in a desperate attempt to drink enough to quench the fire in my mouth. (I survived, my vocal range went down half an octave, and I could eat it now.)
*The Windmill was located just about where Brewer’s Shell Station is now.
Pete and Priscilla did well enough that they were able to raise a family and, about 1980??, buy the property where Kokopelli’s is now. The north part of that building was to have been a meat market, but Pete used the west end of the building (now the office) as the bar; the eating area was in the middle, and the east end was the kitchen, as it is now.
What’s now Hiway 14 was once Hiway 10 (see next item) Until the late 1970s, Hiway 10 was narrow, almost shoulderless, and very curving—so curving, in fact, that the locals complained frequently about the difficulty in passing a slow-moving “flatlander” or “turista” heading off the mountain anywhere on the six miles from Hiway 44/536 to US 66/I-40 in Tijeras.
There was one exception. In front of what is now the carcass of the Bella Vista Restaurant (see below) and the Villages at Bella Vista was a straight stretch of maybe half a mile. There, if you were lucky enough to face no upcoming traffic, you could pass the picnicker and get your speed back up to 40 mph or so.
NM 10 vs. I-10—Guess Which One Wins!
Hiway 14 (see History [HOTLINK TO THAT WORD]) was once a dirt road called Hiway 10. But when the NM Dept of Transportation (then the NM Highway Department) completed Interstate 10 from El Paso through Deming and Lordsburg to Arizona, the State decreed that the state wasn’t big enough for two Hiway 10s. Poor little Hiway 10, which ran from Mountainair (or points further south) to Santa Fe, came out a poor second in the naming struggle. It was summarily renamed Hiway 14—and it’s taken old-timers years to make the adjustment.
Phone Exchanges
In the early 1970s the only exchange in the East Mountains was 282, and the last four digits began with a 3. But in the 1980s, Mountain Bell (precursor to Qwest) declared 282 to be obsolete and mandated the 281 prefix. (I remember joining our community water system in 1972, which involved a visit with a most-imposing Mrs. Baker, who looked at my application and the phone number I’d written on it—282-5239—and told me that I’d obviously submitted an erroneous application. Only when I brought her written proof that my assigned number was in the 5XXX series would she let me have “her” water.)
The Bella Vista
One of the decades-old landmarks in the East Mountains was the Bella Vista Restaurant on North 14. Mushrooming over the 1960s through the 1990s from an average-capacity place to a mega-munchery, the place became for some time the largest restaurant in the state, in its prime seating some 1,200 people at one time. It lured both local residents and “city folks,” thanks to its all-you-can-eat specials—chicken or fish and fries with cole slaw for (way back there) about $3.
Old-timer’s memory: A sudden and vicious snow storm would hit the mountains. The staff working for the Guelfi brothers, who owned the Bella Vista, would start phoning the local folks, telling them to call all their neighbors to tell them that “The BV” had cooked up a normal (big) batch of chicken and fish that was going to go to waste because the “city folks” would never head for the mountains “in weather like this.” All they had to do for a free meal was to get to Bella Vista. We had some great times—eating ourselves into satiety, warming ourselves in front of the fireplaces, staring out the picture windows at the blizzard, and knowing we should start heading home, but having such a good time that we’d almost resign ourselves to not making it. Free food, fine friends, and fantastic scenery don’t come along very often.
What’s Our Altitude?
An official US Coast & Geodetic Survey marker located at the junction of Cienega and Tejano Canyon Roads notes that the elevation at that point is 7,010 feet above mean sea level.
Hmmmmm,
Bernalillo County Doesn’t Serve East Mountain Residents?
A
quote from the “Bernco.gov” web site: “Bernalillo
County … Government serves over 600 thousand people who make
their homes between the Sandia Mountains and the West Mesa.”
What about those of us who live between the Sandia Mountains and the
county line?
WHEN
YOUR HOME’S AT 7000 FEET, IT’S HARD
NOT TO LOOK DOWN ON OTHERS!
ARTICLES
WINGED WONDERS
Incredibly gorgeous, amazingly brave, and astonishingly powerful, hummingbirds are nature’s quintessential magic. Vibrantly dressed in a host of jewel tones, these tiny, graceful beauties are a colorful and cheerful addition to any outdoor haven.
Who is this fantastic fellow?
He zooms from heights loftier than tall buildings in a single bound so fast he sounds like a speeding bullet. He’s barely heavier than a dime, yet has the wing power to complete a 2,000-mile journey. Through scarcely bigger than a man’s thumb, he’s capable of flying nonstop across 600 miles of open water.
If Superman were a wild animal, he wouldn’t be a lion or an eagle; he’d surely be a hummingbird. For when it comes to sheer grit, energy, and strength—as demonstrated by a host of staggering statistics—no other warm-blooded creature can rival this tiny avian wonder.
Possessing wings that operate like miniature helicopter rotors, hummingbirds are able to zoom straight up and down, dart forward, then reverse their wings and fly backwards. In mid-flight, within a fraction of a second, they can flip onto their backs and reverse directions. Their 80-times-a-second wing beat is so rapid that all you see is a blur. Macho male hummingbirds attract mates with a dramatic courtship dive, sometimes plunging 100 feet and reaching speeds of 60 miles an hour.
A tiny hummingbird simply hovering before a flower expands 10 times the energy of a person running 9 miles an hour, proportional to body mass. And whereas a person’s heart beats an average of 70 times a minute, a hummingbird’s average heart rate is 1,260!
To help conserve energy, hummingbirds can slip into a state of suspended animation at night. Experts speculate this survival mechanism may be especially helpful when the weather is cool and food supply is low. While in this hibernation like torpor, a hummingbird’s body temperature drops, and it uses only one-twentieth the energy it spends during normal sleep.
Exotic appearances to the contrary, hummingbirds are far from rare. Native to the Western Hemisphere, they come in 340 species. If you live in the East, the ruby-throated hummingbird is the one you’ll most likely see, as it’s the only species nesting east of the Mississippi River; western North America is home to 13 species. The other 326 species are found throughout Central and South America.
In nature’s infinite variety, each kind of hummingbird flaunts its own unique jewel-tone coloration. Interestingly, those ruby, sapphire, topaz, turquoise, and emerald hues aren’t generated by pigment in the feathers but rather by their structure. Flat, microscopic plates filled with air bubbles cover each feather, bouncing sunlight much the way an oil slick in a rain puddle will flash a rainbow. The thickness of the bubbles (which varies with each species) influences the way the light bends, and which colors will glitter.
The most brilliantly colored hummingbirds are males. Females generally display more subdued hues – an advantage because it makes them less visible to predators such as magpies, road runners, and hawks. The female hummingbird needs every advantage she can get: Following a brief mating, she’s left to the tasks of nest building, egg hatching, and baby care, while the male, with his “love’ em and leave’ em attitude, resumes life in the fast lane, seeking new females to bedazzle with resplendent plumage and dramatic dives.
The mother hummingbird builds an exquisite walnut-size, cup-shape nursery out of cobwebs, plant down, moss, flowers, bark, and lichen. Some hummingbirds construct nests almost entirely of spider silk. Ornithologist Herbert Brandt estimates that a single blue-throated hummingbird nest may contain 15,000 miles of spider silk and insect thread.
The female hummingbird lays two pea-size eggs, which hatch about two weeks later. The hummingbird mom feeds her nestlings by thrusting her scimitarlike beak far down their throats and regurgitating – an alarming sight that appears as through she’s stabbing them. In two to three weeks, the babies learn to fly. For a little while longer, mom continues to feed them. By the time her offspring are on their own, you’d think she’d take a well-earned rest. Often, however, female hummingbirds raise two or three broods a season.
Despite their small size, hummingbirds are feisty. They are fiercely territorial and will drive off not only rival hummingbirds, but even huge hawks. Fearless in the presence of humans, they’re wont to fly up close, buzz over your head, play in the spray of a handheld hose, and even sip nectar from cut flowers while you’re picking a bouquet.
By
Shelley Goldbloom – Garden Shed
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an article to share!
Send it our way: web_happy@yahoo.com
RECIPES
FROM “The Sandia Mountains”
Breakfast
Green
Chile & Bacon Quiche
Prep &
Cook Time: 1 hour - Makes 2 quiches for 12 to 16 servings
4
eggs
2 c. of half & half milk
3 c. grated cheddar cheese
8
slices crumbled bacon
2 c. medium-hot, chopped green chilies
2
pie crust
Mix eggs, milk, cheese, bacon and chile. Pour into
prepared pie crusts. Bake 350 degrees for 1 hour, let it cool a bit
and cut servings like a pie.
╬
Dinner
Three-Generation
Herbed Spinach Pasta
Prep & Cook Time: 18 minutes,
Makes 4 servings
2 cups uncooked penne
pasta
½ medium onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1
tablespoon olive oil
¾ teaspoon basil
1 medium red,
yellow or green pepper; cut in strips
1 can whole leaf spinach,
well drained
Cook pasta according to package directions; drain
and keep warm
Cook onion, garlic and basil in oil in skillet until
onion is tender.
Add pepper strips; cook 3 minutes. Stir in
spinach; heat through.
Toss with pasta and top with parmesan
cheese, if desired.
╬
Side
Dishes
Bear Mountain Lodge Salsa
4
tomatoes
3 green onions, trimmed
½ jalapeno
2 cloves
garlic
6 sprigs cilantro
¼ inch coin of ginger
1 ½
to 2 t. chipotle in adobe puree
1 lime
salt to taste
Place
garlic, cilantro, ginger, jalapeno and peel of lime on a cutting
board. Add salt and mince. Cut onions and tomatoes in smaller pieces,
add to the pile and
continue mincing.
Scrape into a bowl, add
juice of lime and chipotle puree.
Bon
Appetite
Got a recipe
to share!
Send
it our way: web_happy@yahoo.com
THE
JOKE
A blonde walks into a department store and
asks a salesperson where she can find curtains that’ll fit her
computer screen. The surprised clerk replies, “But computers
don’t need curtains.” The blonde shakes her head in
disbelief. Helloooo,” she says. “I’ve got
Windows.”
Quick Tip
Keep a
wind shield fog-free by wiping with a paper towel spritzed with
shaving cream.
FACTS
Did you know?
Heard a good one?
Send it our way: web_happy@yahoo.com