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Montezuma, New Mexico

Coordinates: 35°39′08″N 105°16′35″W / 35.65222°N 105.27639°W / 35.65222; -105.27639
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Montezuma, New Mexico
Unincorporated area
Partial page from Harpers's Weekly, 1890, describing Las Vegas Hot Springs (now Montezuma, NM). Upper image is "Mountain View near the Springs". First inset is "Taking a Mud Bath". Third image is "The Montezuma", and the top of "View in the Cañon" appears to the lower left.
Partial page from Harpers's Weekly, 1890, describing Las Vegas Hot Springs (now Montezuma, NM). Upper image is "Mountain View near the Springs". First inset is "Taking a Mud Bath". Third image is "The Montezuma", and the top of "View in the Cañon" appears to the lower left.
Montezuma, New Mexico is located in New Mexico
Montezuma, New Mexico
Coordinates: 35°39′08″N 105°16′35″W / 35.65222°N 105.27639°W / 35.65222; -105.27639[1]
CountryUnited States
StateNew Mexico
CountySan Miguel
Elevation
[1]
6,719 ft (2,048 m)
GNIS feature ID908848[1]

Montezuma is an unincorporated community in San Miguel County, New Mexico, United States. It is located approximately five miles northwest of the city of Las Vegas, New Mexico, at the mouth of Gallinas Canyon.

The town was best known for many years for its natural hot springs,[2] the Montezuma Hot Springs, and was in fact called "Los Ojos Calientes".[3] or "Las Vegas Hot Springs" until the late 19th century.

The town consists of ranches, a post office, and the United World College-USA. The ZIP Code for Montezuma is 87731.[4]

History

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Prehistorically, Native Americans valued the hot springs and regarded them therapeutically.[5] The springs were named Montezuma due to a Pecos legend that the famed emperor of the Mexica had journeyed to the springs to bathe in their healing waters.[6]

In 1835, Mexican colonists established Las Vegas, New Mexico, five miles away. In 1841, Julian and Antonio Donaldson petitioned the local government for the site of the Montezuma Hot Springs, and received a grant of the property.[6] By 1846, when the U.S. Army claimed New Mexico as a territory of the United States, the Donaldsons were operating a small bathhouse there, which could be used for a fee.[6] They then built a six-room log bathhouse, but in 1856 the U.S. Marshal seized the property for debts, and sold it.[6]

Soon, the U.S. Army assumed management of the Montezuma Hot Springs, in conjunction with Fort Union.[6] A one-story adobe military hospital was established near the hot springs in 1846.[5][7] The hospital was a long one-story adobe building with a veranda across the front supported by posts of natural logs.[8] By 1861, most of the soldiers had left Fort Union due to the Civil War, and the Montezuma Hot Springs property changed hands several times.[6]

The adobe military hospital was converted into a hotel in 1862.[5] In 1864 the owner, O.H. Woodworth, advertised the wonderful effect of these springs in curing "Syphilitic and kindred diseases, Scrofula, Cutaneous diseases, Rheumatism, etc."[6] The bathhouse was managed by Dr. and Mrs. S.B. Davis, and then W.S. Moore bought the hot springs and built an establishment called The Adobe Hotel, where Jesse James and Billy the Kid spent three days as guests in July 1879.[6] That same month, the railroad arrived in nearby Las Vegas, New Mexico.[9]

The Las Vegas Hot Springs Company, controlled by the railroad, purchased the property on August 1, 1879, and built a two-story stone bathhouse there for $17,000.[6] In February 1880, the company opened a three-story stone hotel with 75 rooms available for $4 per night. The sandstone structure, built by F.C. Martsolf, had a projecting central tower and second floor balustraded veranda, reading rooms, parlors and a large dining hall.[7] It was originally called the Hot Springs Hotel[10] and is now called the Old Stone Hotel and is used by the United World College-USA.

In 1881 a fire destroyed the bathhouse.[6] The company built a new one for $20,000 which could accommodate 500 customers daily.[6] Also in 1881 a telephone line connected the hotel to Las Vegas, New Mexico, then a boomtown.[6]

In 1882 a company associated with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway built nine dams to create ice ponds in the Gallinas River canyon, above the Montezuma Hot springs, and the railroad ran a nine-mile spur line from Las Vegas to the hot springs and to the furthest pond, two miles past the hot springs.[6][11] The ponds supplied ice for refrigerated freight cars transporting vegetables from California to eastern markets.[2] Montezuma's ice ponds became one of the major ice-producing centers in the west, and up to 300 men were employed seasonally by Agua Pura Ice Company for the cutting, storing and shipping of 50,000 tons of ice annually, until mechanical refrigeration became available in the 1930s.[6][11] One of the ponds, shaded by a cliff and known as the Montezuma Skating Pond, became a favorite spot for ice skating, and continued to be used for that purpose through the 1990s.[12] There was also a lime kiln in the area.[7]

The railroad spur also brought tourists to Montezuma,[2] and in 1881 and 1882, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway built the first of three large hotels on the site[10] and renamed the city, formerly known as Hot Springs, Montezuma. At the time, railroads were designing destination resorts, luxury vacation destinations in naturally appealing settings along their lines that would create a symbiotic relationship between rail and hotel.[8]

The hotel, designed by John Wellborn Root of Chicago, cost $150,000 to build. It had gaslights, and a dining hall, bowling alleys, a billiards room, and 240 guest rooms.[6] It was an enormous, castle-like structure built entirely of wood, four stories high, with a massive tower.[13] It was the largest frame building in the country at the time.[13] Together with its bathhouses, swimming pool, private mud baths, outdoor hot springs, fine dining, and various outdoor activities,[7] it was among the finest health resorts in the world.[13] A small bridge connected it to the train depot and power plant[6] across the river.[14]

Distinguished guests from around the world visited Montezuma to enjoy its curative waters and other amenities including a racetrack.[14] The hotel and dining service were managed by Fred Harvey, and the hotel was one of the grandest in the Harvey House system.[13] The availability of ice made it possible for the railroad to bring refrigerated goods, and the hotel's restaurant regularly served luxuries including sea turtles and sea celery from the Gulf of Mexico[13] and fresh fruit and vegetables imported from Mexico.[6] Carriages and horses were available for guests, and the park contained rustic bridges, an archery range, and tennis and croquet courts.[6]

In January 1884, a fire started in the naphtha of the gas generating plant and destroyed the Montezuma Hotel within an hour.[6] The company immediately began building a new hotel. Built of brownstone with a slate roof, it opened in 1885.[14] It was the first building in New Mexico to be lighted by electricity.[6] The floor plan allowed for several hours of natural light in each of the hotel's 300[6] rooms daily, and the structure was one of the few buildings in the United States supplied with water under pressure.[14] Within four months of its opening, a fire started in the attic. Volunteer fire fighters were able to save the first two floors, but water sprayed from their hoses could not reach the third and fourth floors.[6]

The company rebuilt the hotel, stating that it would be "the most palatial inn between Chicago and San Francisco," and it re-opened in 1886.[11] It had three floors instead of four, and was named The Phoenix for rising from the ashes.[6] The name didn't stick, and it continued to be called the Montezuma Hotel.[6] The hotel had more than 250 rooms and a 60 by 100-foot casino with a dance floor and stage as well as four bowling alleys, a large billiard hall, outside archery, lawn tennis, croquet, a beautiful garden with a fountain, a zoo and a racetrack.[15] The dining room seated 500 guests at a time, and the bath house was capable of providing 1,000 baths per day.[15] A stable, power plant, icehouse, depot, and foreman's cottage were on the premises.[15] The hotel was furnished with cocobolo, ebony and French walnut, and fireplaces were in every room.[15]

Distinguished guests at the hotel included former president Ulysses S. Grant.[6] Guests came from England, Germany and Mexico.[6] In 1887, 600 guests attended the Grand Army of the Republic convention at the Montezuma Hotel.[7] The next year, the Montezuma Hotel hosted the national convention of the Odd Fellows Lodge, and 1,000 guests arrived on two trains.[6] This final Montezuma Hotel, now known as the Montezuma Castle, remains, and has been designated a "national treasure."

Business at the hotel suffered during the Panic of 1893.[6] Also in 1893 a railroad strike halted transportation.[14] By the late 1890s, travelers from the east preferred to continue west to the Grand Canyon and California without stopovers in New Mexico.[13] Other resorts had opened in the West, including El Tovar at the Grand Canyon.[8] In addition, travel abroad on luxurious steamships became available.[6]

The railway company attempted to maintain business by publishing books about the community in 1898 and 1900. The 1900 text notes that "The Montezuma Hotel is a handsome four-story structure in the chateau style, built of grayish red sandstone and slate. It stands on the north side of the Gallinas where the cañon widens to a small amphitheater, about one hundred feet above the riverbed, and commanding attractive views of the pine-clad slopes of the surrounding hills, and a splendid vista through the cañon mouth across the plains and mesas to the dark forest ridge, thirty miles away on the southwestern horizon. The floor of the amphitheater is occupied by a pretty lawn of several acres, with firm turf, primeval pines, seats, flower-beds, and tennis and croquet grounds, while the steep slope up to the hotel is tastily parked with winding drives and walks"[16] Rates at the time were $2.50 to $4.00 by the day, and $52 – $80 by the month, with discounts available under various circumstances.[17] The book particularly recommended the hotel for those suffering from tuberculosis. The 1898 book was even more forceful in its recommendations, calling it "the most desirable resort in the world for those who are afflicted with any form of lung or throat disease."[18] The text goes on to suggest that Northern New Mexico would be palliative for all sick people except for those with "advanced stage" heart disease, who would suffer from the altitude. "Even imaginary ailments give way before forces so potent for good."[18]

In 1903, the Las Vegas and Hot Springs Electric Railway, Light and Power Company launched electric trolley service extending from Las Vegas, New Mexico to Montezuma, in part using the tracks of the railroad spur and adding overhead electric power lines.[6][11] Ten miles of electric railway extended between the Montezuma Hot Springs and the Castaneda Hotel in East Las Vegas, New Mexico.[11] Passengers traveled on the line to attend special events such as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen's Ball in 1903 at the hot springs.[11] Nonetheless, as business at the Montezuma Hotel was very slow by then, the trolley lines were mainly used for transporting ice on freight cars drawn by an electric locomotive, until the service ended in 1906.[6] In 1903, convict laborers began building a road above Montezuma into Gallinas Canyon.[7]

The railroad closed the Montezuma Hotel in 1903, deeming it unprofitable.[19] The Montezuma Hotel became known as the "neglected mansion in the mountains."[14] The era of the great American resort hotels had ended.[8] In 1904, a flash flood swept away the bath house.[6] In 1912, the year that New Mexico became a state, boxer Jim Flynn used the Montezuma Hotel as training quarters in preparation for his fight against heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in Las Vegas, New Mexico.[6] The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad company held the property for several years, then sold it to the Y.M.C.A. for $1 in 1913.[7]

The Y.M.C.A. eventually sold the property and it changed hands several times until the Baptist Convention of New Mexico purchased it in 1920 for use as a college.[6][7] The Montezuma Baptist College opened in 1922 with 106 students, and by 1925 the school had 255 students and 29 faculty members.[6] In 1930 it closed due to depression-era financial difficulties.[6]

In May 1937, the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) purchased the 800-acre property in Montezuma, to be managed by the Mexican Catholic Hierarchy, for $19,000.[19] At that time, the Catholic Church in Mexico was impacted by the Cristero War, which developed out of the Mexican Revolution. Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles had sought to limit the power of the church, and so the Montezuma Seminary was established in 1937 as a seminary in exile.[19] It was a joint project between U.S. and Mexican Catholic hierarchies.[19] NCWC spent more than $350,000 to restore the premises in 1937.[14]

From 1937 until 1972 the Montezuma Seminary became known as the "American Douai"[14] and served as a training site well over 1,000 Mexican priests.[20] The main Montezuma Hotel housed the theologians, the Stone Hotel housed the philosophers, and the Latin scholars lived in a white frame building at the foot of the hill.[14] The seminary obtained heat from the old power plant across the river, using coal hauled from Raton, New Mexico.[14] Steam was conducted through insulated pipes to all of the buildings. and water from the reservoir built in 1883 in the hills above the Montezuma Hotel.[14] The Montezuma Seminary closed in 1972, as the reason for exile had ended.

For a time, a Chicano power student group from New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico, occupied the abandoned Montezuma Castle.[8] In 1974, the Montezuma Hotel Complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The property remained vacant for a decade until the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West (UWC-USA) purchased the property in 1981.[21]

In 1981, the Montezuma Hotel, by then called the Montezuma Castle, was not safe for occupancy, and the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West made its home in the buildings surrounding the Montezuma Castle, leaving the castle as a backdrop rather than the centerpiece of the school.[8] In 1997, the National Trust for Historic Preservation selected the Montezuma Castle as one of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.[8] In 1998, the White House Millennium Council designated the Montezuma Castle as one of America's Treasures, the first property west of the Mississippi River to receive this honor.[8] Also in 1998, philanthropist Shelby M.C. Davis announced a major challenge grant to attract funds to save the Montezuma Castle.[8]

The renovated Montezuma Castle was publicly unveiled on September 29, 2001, presided over by Queen Noor.[8] Prince Pavlos of Greece, an alum of UWC-USA, was present.[8] Shelby Davis, the globally-minded philanthropist who endowed much of the project, accepted an outpouring of gratitude from UWC-USA students representing 83 nations and dressed in traditional costumes.[8]

Education

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The United World College-USA, a two-year high school with students from more than 90 countries, is located in Montezuma.[22]

Geography and geology

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The community lies along the Gallinas River, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is only a few miles from Hermit's Peak. The water filling the Montezuma Hot Springs likely originates from snowmelt and rain from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains which infiltrates porous and permeable rocks, percolating through rock to the mouth of the Gallinas Canyon.[23] There are several theories as to how the water is heated, including geothermal gradient, heat associated with relatively recently uplifted basement rock, or magma extending from volcanism of northeastern New Mexico.[23]

Films and television

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Movies and television shows filmed in and around Montezuma include:

Notable people

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See also

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flag New Mexico portal

References

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  1. ^ a b c U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Montezuma, New Mexico
  2. ^ a b c Bejnar, W., and Bejnar, K. C. (1979) "Structural geology related to the Montezuma Hot Springs, Montezuma, New Mexico" New Mexico Geology 2(2): pp. 21-24
  3. ^ The Montezuma (New Mexico) Story, F. Stanley, 1963
  4. ^ "Montezuma ZIP Code". zipdatamaps.com. Retrieved November 11, 2022.
  5. ^ a b c "The Las Vegas Hot Springs," Clarence Pullen, Harpers Weekly, June 28, 1890, p.499 [1]
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj Perrigo, Lynn Irwin (2010). Gateway to Glorieta: A History of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Santa Fe, NM: Sunstone Press. pp. 21–25, 31–47, 147, 177, 196–197. ISBN 978-0-86534-785-4.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Portelle Romero, Edwina (2018). Las Vegas, New Mexico 1835-1935. Las Vegas, New Mexico: The Friends of the City of Las Vegas Museum and Rough Rider Memorial Collection. pp. 21, 32–33, 37–40, 57, 89–90, 93–94. ISBN 978-0-9888018-1-3.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Bowman, Jon (2002). Montezuma: The Castle in the West. New Mexico Magazine. pp. 5–6, 8, 12, 23–25, 27–31, 108–111. ISBN 0-937206-72-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  9. ^ "Travel the Trail: Map Timeline 1878-1880". National Park Service. Retrieved September 29, 2024.
  10. ^ a b "The Montezuma Hotel at Las Vegas Hot Springs, New Mexico, Louise Harris Ivers, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 1974
  11. ^ a b c d e f Myrick, David F. (1990). New Mexico's Railroads: A Historical Survey (2nd ed.). Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press. pp. 16–17, 235–236. ISBN 978-0-8263-1185-6.
  12. ^ "City officials aim to restore Montezuma Skating Pond to its former glory". Las Vegas Optic. October 26, 2023. Retrieved September 24, 2024.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Poling-Kempes, Lesley (1989). The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West. De Capo Press. pp. 41, 119, 152–154. ISBN 978-1-56924-926-0.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Owens, Sister M. Lilliana (March 1947). "The American Douai: The National Pontifical Seminary of Our Lady of Guadalupe". Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. 58 (1): 22–39 – via JSTOR.
  15. ^ a b c d Quintana, Patricio G. (June 1, 2016). "Historic Landmarks: Revisited moments from 94 years of New Mexico Magazine". New Mexico Magazine.
  16. ^ Las Vegas Hot Springs, New Mexico, W. H. Carruth, Issued by Passenger Department, Santa Fe Route, December 1900, p. 28+
  17. ^ Las Vegas Hot Springs, New Mexico, W. H. Carruth, Issued by Passenger Department, Santa Fe Route, December 1900, p. 54
  18. ^ a b Las Vegas Hot Springs and Vicinity, C. A. Higgins, Issued by the Passenger Department, Santa Fe Route, February 1898
  19. ^ a b c d Martinez, Anne M. (Fall 2002). ""From the Halls of Montezuma": Seminary in Exile or Pan-American Project?". U.S. Catholic Historian. 20 (4): 35–51 – via JSTOR.
  20. ^ Butler, Matthew (January 3, 2020). "Montezuma's Gold: US-Mexican Diplomacy and the Rebuilding of Mexican Catholicism, 1937-1960". Berkley Forum – via Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.
  21. ^ "www.uwc-usa.org". United World College-USA. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  22. ^ "United World College-USA". September 24, 2024. Retrieved September 24, 2024.
  23. ^ a b Lessard, Robert H. and Waldemere Bejnar (1976). "Geology of the Las Vegas Area" (PDF). New Mexico Geological Society Annual NMGS Fall Field Conference Guidebooks: 107.
  24. ^ Scherer, Phil (February 8, 2022). "Discovery Channel star believes Montezuma Hot Springs healed him". Las Vegas Optic. Retrieved September 24, 2024.
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Media related to Montezuma, New Mexico at Wikimedia Commons

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