On Walkabout In: Mountainair, New Mexico

Just up the road from the Gran Quivira Pueblo ruins is the major population center in this area of New Mexico, the small village of Mountainair.  The village is located at a high altitude of 6,519 ft (1,987 m) since it is at the base of the 10,098 ft (3,078 m) Manzano Peak, which is part of the mountain chain that runs south from Albuquerque and composes the Cibola National Forest:

Mountainair was founded in 1903 as a railway hub since it sits at the top of Abo Pass that the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad used to cross over the mountains to reach the city of Belen in the Rio Grande River Valley.  This train route is still used today, but the station is no longer used for any passenger traffic and strictly freight trains now pass through the town.  Despite this the railroad continues to maintain the old historic railway station:

Like the small town of Claunch down the road, Mountainair was once a big grower of pinto beans, and in the 1950’s considered the “Pinto Bean Capitol of the World“.   At the height of its population Mountainair once had 5,000 residents.  Currently it has a population of 1,116 people, which means that it has a smaller population than what the Gran Quivira Pueblo supported at the height of its population growth.  Since this is a small town there really isn’t a whole lot to see, but the village does serve as a good area to get gas and food as well as information about the nearby mountains and Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument that my wife and I with our baby daughter were visiting during this trip.

However, a closer look at Mountainair does provide a glimpse of the Old West past that New Mexico in many aspects still clings to.  For example here is the Shaffer Hotel that was first constructed in 1923:

Right next to the hotel is the Shaffer Dining Room that still has old Buddhist symbols on  it:

You can read about the history of this hotel at its website.

After finishing our quick look around Mountainair, my wife and I then headed off to our next destination which was the Quarai Peublo.