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    Jemez Springs
    Jemez Springs
    Jemez Springs
    Ebook169 pages28 minutes

    Jemez Springs

    By Kathleen Wiegner and Robert Borden

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    About this ebook

    In 1849, James Hervy Simpson, a lieutenant and engineer in the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, was ordered to survey a wagon road as a southern alternative to the Santa Fe Trail from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Simpson hired two brothers, Edward "Ned" and Richard Kern, to provide survey sketches that included the pueblo ruins of Giusewa and natural hot springs of Ojo Caliente, which are known today as Jemez Springs. Prior to incorporation in 1955, Jemez Springs, like many frontier towns, was supported by ranching, logging, and mining. It also had an influx of tourists who enjoyed the hot springs or one of the many dude ranches in the area. In 1995, Jemez Springs won an award as an All-America City from the National Civic League, and with a mere 375 residents at the time, it was one of the smallest communities to earn the honor.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439623299
    Jemez Springs
    Author

    Kathleen Wiegner

    As journalists, photographers, and authors, Kathleen Wiegner and her husband, Robert Borden, have been publishing the local newspaper, the Jemez Thunder, for 13 years. With local history an important focus of the newspaper, Wiegner and Borden have collected numerous vintage photographs�many of which are showcased here�and have worked diligently to preserve the history of Jemez Springs for future generations.

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      Book preview

      Jemez Springs - Kathleen Wiegner

      complete.

      INTRODUCTION

      The name Jemez Springs was not settled on as the name of the village until 1910. Prior to that, it had many names. The Native Americans called it Giusewa, meaning land of boiling water. The Spanish referred to it as Los Ojos Calientes for the many hot springs found in the area. The Jemez Indians called themselves the Hemish (the people). The Spaniards changed it to Jamez or Jemez (pronounced Hay-mez). In the late 1800s, the name changed when the then-postmaster, named Perea, asked the U.S. Postal Service to name the post office after himself. Even when its name was officially Jemez Springs, it was often referred to as Jemez Hot Springs.

      Both the Spanish and Native American cultures still exist in Jemez today. The Pueblo of Jemez lies 10 miles south of the village. Spanish names like Trujillo, Jaramillo, and Garcia abound. Only after New Mexico became a U.S. territory in 1850 did the Anglo presence become a part of the Native American–Spanish mix.

      For a long time, Jemez was the place where people came to pick up their mail, buy some supplies, and enjoy a night on the town. For people living in the far-out rural areas, Jemez Springs was often a much-anticipated trip to town. It wasn’t much of a town.

      At the dawn of the 20th century, Jemez Springs was an isolated rural community literally at the end of a dirt road. Only horse trails headed up the canyon. But the early 20th century saw the beginning of Jemez Springs as a tourist town, popular for its many hot springs. There were two bathhouses in Jemez Springs, and both operate today, although in altered forms. The story goes that during the summer, tents sprung up like mushrooms near the hot springs as people camped, hoping the hot water full of minerals would cure them of their ills.

      There were hotels, as it was a two-day ride by horse-and-buggy to Albuquerque. Dude ranches appealed to the people back east who wanted to experience a bit of the not-so-wild West. They were lured by advertising that promised fishing in the beautiful Jemez, freedom unparalleled in hiking activity, and food and food service par excellence. The Santa Fe National Forest provided places for fishing, hunting, and camping as well as just plain sightseeing.

      While other Western communities became boomtowns because of rich mineral deposits, except for some copper and turquoise that was not good for jewelry making, Jemez Springs did not participate in the boom-and-bust history of so many towns. It was the green gold of the forests that provided the industry. Small areas like Ponderosa, Gilman, and Porter, which are south of Jemez Springs, were alive with logging activity. The lumber companies even built a railroad, blasting tunnels in the rock to bring the logs down from the rough slopes to the mills below.

      North of the village, people hunted, farmed, and raised cows for milk, beef for meat, and chickens for eggs. Joseph Routledge, who grew up in the Jemez during the 1920s and 1930s, remembers some of the more interesting people who came by the family’s cabin.

      There was the bee man, who not only sold honey but also ran a con game. He would disguise his racehorse as an old nag and then challenge people to a race—the stakes were both horses. Looking at the bee man’s sad-looking horse, people gladly took the bet and lost as the old nag beat their horses.

      Then there was Cox, The man who trained burros. He had a corral, a campsite with a tent outside, a campfire for cooking, and makeshift chairs and stumps to sit on to eat around his cooking pot. He told one story about a con he had played on a dude from Albuquerque who came up to fish and had a fancy car. Well Cox took the battery out of the car and put it in his tent. When the man came back and his car wouldn’t start, Cox told him that someone must have stolen his battery. By chance, said Cox, he had one in his tent. So the man paid $20 for his own battery.

      Progress came slowly to Jemez Springs, but it did come. Electricity arrived in 1948 when Fred Abousleman and others set up a small electric generator and then joined with other rural cooperatives to become part of the Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative. In 1949, Highway 4, which serves as the village’s main street, was finally paved. The village was incorporated in 1955. Telephone service came in 1964. The first telephone still hangs in Tom

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