Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
10
Northern New Mexico
If the humdrum of contemporary
American life has you longing for excite-
ment, this is the place to get your adrena-
line flowing. Not only can you travel to a
“foreign land”—namely Gallup, what
locals call “Indian Country”—but you can
also sample a history of Wild West shoot-
outs and exploding volcanoes.
The biggest presence in the northwest is
Native American culture, old and new.
The Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache inhabit
the area. They are the majority and set the
pace and tone of the place. The Zuni,
Acoma, and Laguna pueblos are within a
short distance of I-40.
Acoma's “Sky
City”
has been continually occupied for
more than 9 centuries. Part of the Navajo
Reservation—the largest in America—
takes up a huge chunk of the northwest,
and the Jicarilla Apache Reservation
stretches 65 miles south from the Colo-
rado border.
Three main towns provide launching
points for adventures.
Grants
(pop. 8,900)
is a boom-and-bust town on Route 66,
and
Gallup
(pop. 20,000) is a mecca for
silver jewelry shoppers. Outdoor adven-
turers head to
Chama
(pop. 1,000), where
many enjoy a ride on the Cumbres &
Toltec Railroad.
Two other national monuments in
northwestern New Mexico also speak of
the region's history.
El Morro
is a sand-
stone monolith known as “Inscription
Rock,” where travelers and explorers docu-
mented their journeys for centuries, and
El Malpais
is a volcanic badland with
spectacular cinder cones, ice caves, and
lava tubes.
Meanwhile, the northeast is a place of
wide-open plains once traversed by wagon
trains on the Santa Fe Trail—a 19th-century
trade route that ran from Missouri to Santa
Fe. In
Cimarron
you'll see evidence of the
holdings of cattle baron Lucien Maxwell,
who controlled most of these prairies as his
private empire in the latter half of the 19th
century. Cimarron attracted nearly every
gunslinger of the era, from Butch Cassidy to
Clay Allison, Black Jack Ketchum to Jesse
James.
Established long before its Nevada
namesake,
Las Vegas
was the largest city in
New Mexico at the turn of the 20th cen-
tury, with a fast-growing, cosmopolitan
population. Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson,
and Wyatt Earp walked its wild streets in
the 1880s. A decade later, it was the head-
quarters of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Rid-
ers, and early in the 20th century, it was a
silent film capital. Today, with a popula-
tion of approximately 17,000, it is the
region's largest city and the proud home of
900 historic properties.
Raton
(pop.
7,500), on I-25 in the Sangre de Cristo
foothills, is the gateway to New Mexico
from the north.
Clayton
(pop. 2,500),
Tucumcari
(pop. 6,831), and
Santa Rosa
(pop. 2,500) are all transportation hubs
and ranching centers.
Two national monuments are particular
points of interest.
Fort Union,
24 miles
north of Las Vegas, was the largest military
installation in the Southwest in the 1860s
and 1870s.
Capulin Volcano,
33 miles east
of Raton, last erupted 60,000 years ago;
visitors can now walk inside the crater.
Drained by the Pecos and Canadian
rivers, northeastern New Mexico is notable
for the number of small lakes that afford
opportunities for fishing, hunting, boat-
ing, camping—even scuba diving. Eleven
state parks and about a half dozen desig-
nated wildlife areas are within the region.
