"On the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe"
On July 1st, 1879, the Santa Fe Railroad arrived in Las Vegas, New Mexico, marking a significant moment in the town's history. The arrival of the railroad brought new opportunities for trade and commerce, as well as connectivity to the rest of the country. Nestled in the Sangre De Cristo mountains, Las Vegas would become a prominent division point for the railroad, and would continue to serve the Santa Fe's growing connections for many decades.
Daniel Burnham and John Root
Montezuma Castle began as the centerpiece of a major development project deep in the valley carved out by the Gallinas River. The Santa Fe Railroad, seeking inspiration eastward from the sprawling urban developments in Chicago, struck a deal with the same firm that would later design the Empire State Building. Burnham and Root were tasked with evoking the Western influences of the New Mexico Territory while enticing elites to undertake a six-mile trek from Las Vegas to this new retreat.
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The initial hotel that was built was vastly different from its second and third iterations. Prior to the 1890s, structures built by the firm consisted entirely of wood joists with stone facades and columns to support their expanses. This included wood flooring, lath, and studding for plaster, a construction method also used in East Las Vegas. This design proved to be a major problem with the early electrical installations inside the hotel. Coupled with a valley that frequently experienced high winds, this led to not one, but two untimely fires that completely leveled the structure.
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Albert Alonzo Robinson
Of considerable notoriety, a man who set his gaze on Las Vegas as the right-of-way descended out of Raton Pass, Robinson was responsible for bolstering forces and engineering the tracks to Las Vegas. This major connection point was established with investments from the town and major land acquisition to the east of the Gallinas River. Initially, Las Vegas had anticipated the railroad would run its mainline on the west side of town, and in preparation, many families began purchasing and prepping their properties for the Santa Fe Railroad's arrival.
It was not to be, as the railroad opted for stricter grade requirements; additional bridges and blasting work to carve out the area would have been a major undertaking. Robinson, as General Manager, was a railroad man through and through, eventually moving his talents to the Mexican Central Railway before his passing in Topeka, Kansas, in 1918. His fervent work is best exemplified by the accomplishment of laying 5,000 miles of track between the territory of New Mexico and Texas.
Agua Pura Co.
When trackage made its way into the Valley of Montezuma, it was clear that the climate could freeze the river quickly and for an extended cold season. The Agua Pura Co., incorporated in 1882, built several ice houses along the right-of-way. The company also constructed a wooden dam, creating a vast pond capable of producing hundreds of tons of ice each day. For Las Vegans, this created a thriving secondary business during the cold seasons and was one of the few examples of early refrigeration for the Santa Fe railroad. It was so lucrative that ice distributed into early reefer cars could send perishable items as far as Arizona, offering premium creamery deliveries straight from the Fred Harvey dairy facilities. Engineering didn't stop at one dam; a specialized arched masonry dam was built in 1910 to further add resilience against the major changes in water accumulation within the valley. What became a lucrative mountain ice business, was also a leisurely retreat for families and kids to ice skate. Many decades later, it would continue to be a destination point for ice skaters.
