Crazy Fourth: How Jack Johnson Kept His Heavyweight Title and Put Las Vegas, New Mexico, on the Map

Jack Johnson

(Amazon) In 1912 boxing was as popular a spectator sport in the United States as baseball, if not more so. It was also rife with corruption and surrounded by gambling, drinking, and prostitution, so much so that many cities and states passed laws to control it. But not in New Mexico. It was the perfect venue for one of the biggest, loudest, most rambunctious heavyweight championship bouts ever seen. In Crazy Fourth Toby Smith tells the story of how the African American boxer Jack Johnson--the bombastic and larger-than-life reigning world heavyweight champion--met Jim Flynn on the Fourth of July in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Continued

Castaneda Hotel’s south wing likely will open April 1

La Castaneda before restoration began.

(Route 66 News) The south wing of the historic Castaneda Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico, likely will open to overnight travelers for the first time in decades on April 1. Continued

Revival Las Vegas: The restoration of La Castañeda

La Castaneda before restoration (Sixgun Siding)

(Santa Fe New Mexican) On a recent day in mid-September, dozens of workers were busy inside and outside the historic Castañeda Hotel as owners Allan Affeldt and Tina Mion prepared to open seven rooms in another month or so.
It will be the first time in 70 years that guests have stayed in the establishment at 524 Railroad Avenue in Las Vegas. Continued

Doc Holliday

(Wikipedia) John Henry "Doc" Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887) was an American gambler, gunfighter, dentist, and a good friend of gambler and lawman Wyatt Earp. He is most well known for his role as a temporary deputy marshal in the events leading up to and following the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
... The Santa Fe Railroad built tracks to Las Vegas, New Mexico, but bypassed the city by about a mile. A new town was built up near the tracks and prostitution and gambling flourished there. ... Doc paid $372.50 to a carpenter to build a clapboard building to house Doc Holliday's Saloon with John Webb as his partner. While in town, he was fined twice for keeping a gambling device, and again for carrying a deadly weapon. Continued

The Las Vegas Saloon Shootout

Hoodoo Brown

(Wikipedia) The Variety Hall shootout, also called the Las Vegas Saloon Shootout, (January 22, 1880) was a gunfight that took place in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
 It launched gunman "Mysterious" Dave Mather to fame. Mather had first ventured to Las Vegas as a part of the Dodge City Gang, which also included gunmen John Joshua Webb and "Arkansas" Dave Rudabaugh. Gambler Doc Holliday was also in town at the time, and though generally listed as a member, he was not. However, he was a friend to the gang.
The gang was organized by Justice of the Peace Hoodoo Brown, to control the gambling houses in Las Vegas, muscling out any unwanted rivals, thus raking in profits. Continued

Mysterious Dave Mather

(Wikipedia) Mysterious Dave Mather (born David Allen Mather) was an American lawman and gunfighter in the American Old West. His taciturn personality may earned him the nickname "Mysterious Dave." He was a lawman in Dodge City, Kansas and Las Vegas, New Mexico.
... Mather's early life is uncertain. He was in Dodge City, Kansas in 1872 where he and his brother Josiah may have reunited to become buffalo hunters. He was also reported to have partnered with Wyatt Earp in 1878 in a scheme to sell fake gold bricks in the town of Mobeetie, Texas. Continued

Red Hot for the Crowd

Hotel Castaneda, Las Vegas, New Mexico

(True West) In 1879, when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe chugged into Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory, the railroad brought in a wide variety of food that rivaled the delicacies found in the California streets of San Francisco.   

Playing off recipes developed by local Mexican natives, the Exchange hotel offered a regional dish of Chile Colorado in 1882, which The Las Vegas Gazette described as “…nothing more or less than stewed red peppers.”

But the Exchange’s chef, Paul Crawford, made his Chile Colorado more spicy than stew. Before the meal was over, he had to cool down his customers by bringing them “…an armful of fans and seventeen buckets of ice water. Oh! he made it red hot for the whole crowd.” Continued

The celluloid legacy of Las Vegas, N.M.

(Las Vegas New Mexican) Romaine Fielding, the original auteur, came here to test the boundaries of an emerging medium. Tom Mix, the original cowboy, established an American archetype that would endure for more than a century. In 1913, Fielding arrived in the Meadow City and made 10 films over a few short months. Mix made at least 20 more in the San Miguel County railroad town in the fall of 1915. Continued

Train Station: Las Vegas, New Mexico

Ann Nolan Clark

(Wikipedia) Ann Nolan Clark, born Anna Marie Nolan (December 5, 1896 – December 13, 1995) was an American writer who won the 1953 Newbery Medal. Born in Las Vegas, New Mexico in 1896, Clark graduated from New Mexico Normal School New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas at age 21, and married Thomas Patrick Clark on August 6, 1919.
... Clark found that the underfunded Tesuque School couldn’t afford any substantial instructional material. In the process of teaching the children about literature, she incorporated their voices and stories to write In My Mother's House, and other books for the 1st to 4th grade one-room schoolhouse. She writes about this process, and about her travels to many parts of Central and South America, in her adult nonfiction book, Journey to the People. Continued

Country Churches: Las Vegas, NM

 

Well, it looks like a church, maybe it was a school. Either way, it sits between the train station and Hotel Castaneda.

Prohibition-era New Mexico hotel in online auction

Photo: Wikipedia

(Albuquerque Journal) A famous northern New Mexico landmark where a newspaper publisher shot a judge and a highway official during the 1920s is being sold.
The Las Vegas Optic reports (https://goo.gl/KQa33d) the owners of the Prohibition-era El Fidel Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico are selling the building in an online auction. Continued

Country Churches: Las Vegas, NM

 

I don't know the name of this church. It sits on the outskirts of Las Vegas, just off the far end of El Llano Road. Las Vegas is full of interesting buildings.

Old House 10

 

 

Just outside Las Vegas, New Mexico.