Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Taos
New Mexico's favorite arts town
sits in a masterpiece setting. It's wedged
between the towering peaks of the Rocky
Mountains and the plunging chasm of the
Rio Grande Gorge.
About 70 miles north of Santa Fe, this
town of 5,000 residents combines 1960s
hippiedom (thanks to communes set up in
the hills back then) with the ancient cul-
ture of Taos Pueblo (some people still live
without electricity and running water, as
their ancestors did 1,000 years ago). It can
be an odd place, where some completely
eschew materialism and live “off the grid”
in half-underground houses called earth-
ships. But there are plenty of more main-
stream attractions as well—Taos boasts
some of the best restaurants in the state, a
hot and funky arts scene, and incredible
outdoors action, including world-class ski-
ing.
Its history is rich. Throughout the Taos
valley, ruins and artifacts attest to a Native
American presence dating back 5,000
years. The Spanish first visited this area in
1540, colonizing it in 1598. In the last 2
decades of the 17th century, they put
down three rebellions at Taos Pueblo.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Taos
was an important trade center: New Mex-
ico's annual caravan to Chihuahua, Mex-
ico, couldn't leave until after the annual
midsummer
Taos Fair.
French trappers
began attending the fair in 1739. Even
though the Plains tribes often attacked the
pueblos at other times, they would attend
the market festival under a temporary
annual truce. By the early 1800s, Taos had
become a meeting place for American
mountain men, the most famous of whom,
Kit Carson, made his home in Taos from
1826 to 1868.
Taos remained loyal to Mexico during
the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846. The town
rebelled against its new U.S. landlord in
1847, even killing newly appointed Gov-
ernor Charles Bent in his Taos home.
Nevertheless, the town was eventually
incorporated into the Territory of New
Mexico in 1850. During the Civil War,
Taos fell into Confederate hands for 6
weeks; afterward, Carson and two other
men raised the Union flag over Taos Plaza
and guarded it day and night. Since that
time, Taos has had the honor of flying the
flag 24 hours a day.
Taos's population declined when the
railroad bypassed it in favor of Santa Fe. In
1898, two East Coast artists—Ernest Blu-
menschein and Bert Phillips—discovered
the dramatic, varied effects of sunlight on
the natural environment of the Taos valley
and depicted them on canvas. By 1912,
thanks to the growing influence of the
Taos Society of Artists,
the town had
gained a worldwide reputation as a cul-
tural center. Today, it's estimated that
more than 15% of the population are
painters, sculptors, writers, or musicians,
or in some other way earn their income
from artistic pursuits.
The town of Taos is merely the focal
point of the rugged 2,200-square-mile
Taos County. Two features dominate this
sparsely populated region: the high desert
mesa, split in two by the 650-foot-deep
chasm of the
Rio Grande;
and the
Sangre
de Cristo
range, which tops out at 13,161-
foot Wheeler Peak, New Mexico's highest
mountain. From the forested uplands to
the sage-carpeted mesa, the county is
home to a large variety of wildlife.
Taos is also inhabited by many peo-
ple who have chosen to retreat from, or
