HISTORY
Old
Mill Museum
The history of Cimarron is rich and
interesting, and visitors can still enjoy it today! Several buildings and sites
stand as a testament to the town's wilder days. A "Historic Walking Tour
of Old Town" Cimarron includes a look at the old jail, stage office, St. James
Hotel, and more. In all there are 14 historic sites dating back to the mid
1800s.
One mile south of Highway
64 on State Road 21 lies the Historic District of the Village of
Cimarron. Park near the St. James Hotel (No. 7 on the green pamphlet) and enjoy
the self-guided walking tour of Old Town. It takes 30-60 minutes to see
the 14 historic sites marked in front by stone pedestals; most can be reached by
car. The Walking Tour gives more information than fits onto the brass
plaque mounted atop each pedestal. The Brief History presents a brief
history of the Village and provides background information on the historic
sites, including the Santa Fe Trail, Lucien Maxwell and his 1,713,000-acre Land
Grant, and the Colfax County War.
The Santa Fe Trail
consisted of two main branches: the original route called the Mountain
Branch, which passed through Cimarron, and the Cimarron Cutoff, named
for the town near Dodge City, Kansas. The route of the Mountain Branch follows
present-day I-25 over Raton Pass (along the railroad tracks) and parallels Hwy
64 to Cimarron, crossing in front of the Visitor Center and across the Cimarron
River to Old Town. The two branches met at Fort Union, 90 miles south of
Cimarron and the main fort offering protection for travelers along the Trail.
In the early 1920s,
Waite Phillips, of the Phillips 66 Oil Company, began purchasing large
tracts of land west and south of Cimarron. By the mid-1930s he had acquired
over 300,000 acres and named the ranch Philmont. About 1940 he donated half the
land to the Boy Scouts of America to be used as a working ranch as well as a
high adventure base for Scouts. The headquarters of the Ranch is located four
miles south of Cimarron on SR 21 and houses the Philmont Museum and Seton
Library, which also serves as Philmont’s Visitor Center. Nearby is the
magnificent Villa Philmonte, built by Phillips in the late 1920s; tours
may be arranged at the Philmont Museum.
Eleven miles south of
Cimarron on SR 21 lies the site of Rayado and a reconstruction of Kit
Carson’s hacienda. Carson and Maxwell initially chose to settle along Rayado
Creek in the late 1840s and helped man an army post there attached to Fort
Union. In the mid-1850s they decided that the site of present-day Cimarron was
a better location to start a town, probably because the Cimarron River was more
reliable than the Rayado. Carson’s hacienda is open from early June through
mid-August and rests on property owned by the Scout Ranch. An historic chapel
sits across the road in a stand of trees.
Traces of the Santa Fe
Trail can still be seen nearby. One mile north of
town along Hwy 64 is a sign noting where the Trail crossed the highway from
north to south. Pull off just beyond the sign facing northbound traffic and
look to the right (south). A gentle swale about 30 yards wide and a foot
deep filled with an abundance of sunflower stalks indicates the path where
several wagons rode abreast. As you drive south leaving Philmont Headquarters
and begin to veer left, climbing a steep hill, look to your left about 30 yards
beyond the highway and you will see a series of ruts where wagons
descended the hill. About 13 miles south of Cimarron on SR 21, the road takes a
sharp left turn just before a closed gate that opens onto a dirt road. After
following SR 21 to the left (east) a few hundred yards, the road slightly slopes
down. At the bottom of this gentle dip stop and look to the right (south).
Erosion in the distance indicates trail ruts where wagons had to follow
in single or double file through the narrow gap between the hills (and parallel
to the dirt road on the right).
In 1880 the railroad
arrived in Santa Fe, relegating the Trail to history. In 1906 a railroad spur
arrived in Cimarron, following the Trail from Raton down Hwy 64 and continuing
15 miles further west to the small town of Ute Park. Portions of the old rail
bed can still be seen beside the highway in the canyon; the rails and cars were
sold around 1940 during the war. The station of the St. Louis, Rocky Mountain
and Pacific Railroad was located about 100 yards east of the Cimarron Visitor
Center. A large influx of people followed the arrival of the railroad and most
of the stores along Ninth Street on the north side of the park date from
1906-1910; this area north of the river is referred to as New Town.
Because newcomers preferred to live near the source of their livelihood (the
railroad), Old Town remained undisturbed and looks pretty much the same as it
did 150 years ago when Maxwell first settled and governed this territory.
Compare Cimarron’s plaza with that of Taos, Santa Fe or Albuquerque and you’ll
see how little things have changed here.
Before leaving town, you
might also wish to visit the cemetery on the right off SR 21as you head
south toward Philmont. To experience Cimarron through the lives of its early
inhabitants, pick up a copy of For Good or Bad, by historian
Stephen Zimmer, available at the Cimarron Visitor Center, the Philmont Museum
and other local businesses.
(Pamphlets available on our Downloads page.)
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CIMARRON, NEW MEXICO
