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About twenty miles from Las Vegas the highway dips into a beautiful and lush valley where trees abound. This is Watrous, New Mexico.
The town is located at the confluence of the Sapello and Mora Rivers, whose headwaters are in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southern range of the Rockies. Originally designated as La Junta de los Ríos it was officially changed to Watrous in 1884 by the New Mexico and Southern Pacific Railroad Company (later the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway) to honor one of the town's early settlers, Samuel B. Watrous.
La Junta/Watrous has a played an important commercial role in New Mexico's early history, encompassing its many cultures. Here were located Indian encampments, a Santa Fe Trail resting spot, railroad stops, modern highways, and several nearby Army Posts. |
With the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821 La Junta entered into its heyday of commercial significance. The arrival of French and Anglo-American traders and merchants introduced manufactured goods to New Mexico's markets. Manufactured goods were traded for beaver pelts, buffalo hides, wool and other commodities. La Junta was in a strategic location to facilitate these exchanges. It was here that the two main branches of the Santa Fe Trail, the Cimarron Cutoff and the Mountain Branch rejoined before heading either to Taos or Santa Fe. La Junta was also a rendezvous point for wagons to gather before heading east to markets in St. Louis and Kansas City. Samuel B. Watrous, the namesake for the modern village made his appearance here about1835.
By 1879 the railroad reached La Junta de los Ríos and the name of the settlement was changed to Watrous. Samuel donated ten acres for a station right-of-way. With the arrival of the newest mode of transportation, traffic on the Santa Fe Trail and the stage lines ceased but the town of Watrous successfully made the transition. It became an important shipping point for local products, such as pinto beans and quarried stone, and was used by Fort Union in transporting supplies and personnel, until its abandonment in 1891.
Watrous grew to include several general stores, two churches (Methodist, said to be the oldest Protestant church still standing in New Mexico, and Catholic), a hotel, school, post office, barber shop, blacksmith shop, livery stable, lumber yard, slaughter house, and tavern. Schmidt and Reinken, Hand, and Benedict Marcellin St. Vrain, nephew of the merchant Ceran St. Vrain operated the town’s stores. The village was the home of several short-lived newspapers, including the Mora County Pioneer, Pioneer Journal, Northern New Mexico Farmer's Weekly, Arrow, and Pioneer Plains Times.
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Samuel Watrous committed suicide in 1886 at the age of seventy, possibly from being despondent over the death of Samuel Jr. a few years earlier. Also, the bad winter of 1884 adversely affected his cattle and he borrowed heavily from Charles Ilfeld Company and the 1st National Bank of Las Vegas, which may have contributed to his decision. He was buried on a hill overlooking the Watrous Ranch. He was described as having had a life that "exemplified the American pioneer of a bygone era." And that "perhaps the greatest thing that Samuel Watrous did was the planting of trees."
The passing of the village's namesake did not diminish the town. On the contrary, families continued to settle in the beautiful valley of the two rivers and businesses flourished. Watrous's son-in-law, Carl Wildenstein, developed a flourmill at Glenwood Farm. Several new ranches were operating, the Clyde Ranch and the Dubuque Cattle Company among them. The Overton Mining and Tunnel Company commenced operations in 1881. By 1889 the population had tripled to 365.
At the turn of the century there were new merchandise retailers and new partnerships, such as Lang and Tipton. The town supported an auto dealership and at least one attorney. Samuel's son, Joseph, raised cattle, hay and alfalfa. Unfortunately, a 1901 fire destroyed much of Watrous's business district and several homes, and the flood of 1904 killed eight persons.
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Watrous weathered this setback and reached its peak population of 435, as noted in the 1920 census, in part due to the sanitarium residents at Valmora Ranch. Although the village incorporated in 1939, it was beginning its decline, losing both population and businesses. Watrous received rural electricity in 1946, and by 1950 the population had dropped to 256. Although the railroad made flag stops as late as 1953, Watrous was no longer a key shipping point.
Today the willows lining New Mexico State Highway 161 stand as a mute reminder of the visionary days of Samuel Watrous. Today his beautiful hacienda is the ranch headquarters for the Doolittle Ranch. Hispanics once again make up the majority of its residents. In many ways La Junta de los Ríos has returned to its beginnings as an idyllic, peaceful rest stop, only now for travelers on Interstate 25.
Sources: http://www.newmexicohistory.org
Unexplainable lights seen moving inside the school house at night.
we were unable to locate anything paranormal at the school. However we were not able to explain what is causing the "lights" that witnesses have reported there. The location has no glass in it's windows, ruling out reflections from car headlights and the ground floor is extremely unstable, making trespassers unlikely as well.
Photographs
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