Bandelier in the early 1900s.
We finally hit Santa Fe at 4:20 in the afternoon. Of course, that was my first experience on a narrow gauge train, and there were not too many people on it. They were westerners mostly, and I hadn't seen too many westerners up to that time. So, of course, they were interesting to me. We, we got through the day all right.
Interviewers : Was that in 1914?
Ward : That was in February of '14, 1914. Yes.
Interviewers : When was the first time that you became acquainted with Frijoles Canyon and came out in this area?
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Ward : Well, it seems to me it was within a month or so that I first came out here and of course Frijoles Canyon was a big attraction in Santa Fe. I mean a big tourist attraction. And it was not too long after that that I became involved in this tourist transportation business and of course, our chief objective was then Frijoles Canyon. I mean, that was one of our first, standard and most popular trips. That part of the thing came after we acquired some automobiles and started taking automobile trips. Of course, originally we had a string of horses for riding and pack trips and the automobiles were added later. And as soon as we got the automobiles then we started to bring people over the Frijoles Canyon and that would be the summer of that same year. |
And Judge and Mrs. Abbott were at the time living over here and providing noon meals for the people we would bring over and had a few lodge tents or platform tents in which they would take people to stay over for several days.
Interviewers : Do you remember what the rates were then?
Ward : I'm afraid I can't say that. I know they were equivalent to the rates we used to pay on the Harvey Houses. We paid seventy-five cents for dinner when they stopped the train, you know. And these, these over here were somewhat like that. Probably a dollar, maybe less. And Mrs. Abbott served just a wonderful feast, too. It was one of the high spots of my day when I would bring a group over and eat with them.
Interviewers : Were they fairly self-sufficient down here in the canyon?
Ward : Well, they had a rather good sized garden. Members of the San Ildefonso Pueblo came over here and worked with them right along. They had at least one or two here all the time all summer and would help them on all their work. Now, they had a number of horses and they packed in all their supplies. They'd bring 'em out to the head of the trail up the mesa above and then would pack 'em down to the (garbled). And Judge Abbott did most of that. Well, I wouldn't say he did either. The Indians probably did quite a bit too, later on. Interviewers : Judge Abbott was a fairly old man when he was here in the canyon. Ward : I think he was over 75 when I knew him, but I'm not sure. He was a retired, I believe federal court judge from Kansas when he came out here… Interviewers : How long did it take you to come from Santa Fe out to here? |
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Ward : I was trying to remember. It runs in my mind that it took us pretty close to three hours from the time we left Santa Fe until we got to the bottom of the canyon. Of course, it would be a half an hour involved in getting down from the top. We'd leave in the morning about eight and we'd get over here just about in time for lunch and then after lunch, why, those that are able to stagger up to the upper end of the canyon would. And then after all that, to walk back up the trail to the car was sometimes more than some of them could take….
Interviewers : What was the reaction of people that you brought out here? Were they pretty well pleased?
Ward : Everyone was very much delighted with the trip and the things they saw here. It was one of the, I think, one of the high spots of their western tours. Of course, this is a side trip from Santa Fe Railroad, you know … They gave 'em a free side trip if they bought a ticket from Chicago to the Coast. It entitled them to a side trip to Santa Fe if they wanted to….
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Interviewers : About how many people would you estimate would visit the canyon in say, a summer, an average summer? … Ward : Some days when we had two trips, two car loads. That would be thirteen, twenty people or something like that. Well, it would be, let's see, we could handle six in the one car and four in the other, comfortably. So it would be about maybe ten and if you figure that would turn out forty or fifty a week at the maximum. Interviewers : … Now, did you have a regular operating season? Was it, say, June up through September? |
Ward : Yes. The roads were impassable. You see, all the roads that had a northern exposure, the ice would pile up on them and I think probably the latter part of September from then on you couldn't get in there. I know that we did run some trips over there. One of our very good drivers was a young man named Orville Cox and I recall at least one trip that we sent him over here on, we had chains on all 4 wheels and he was even scared then going up this last canyon because the ice would form higher on this inside. So he was going up on the . . . . his car was kind of tipped over, ready to slide off . . . . no parapet or anything there. And I know he drove over once and I wouldn't have driven it.
Interviewers : Well now, in your business of bringing people out here, did you also provide them any interpretation or tell them about the ruins and guide them around? Or was this part of it?
Ward : Just what we knew ourselves. And Judge Abbott, of course, was a very good narrator. We told them as much as we knew about the dwellers in the cliffs at the time and of course we picked up our information from the Museum of New Mexico and the Archaeological Society. Our trips would start in by investigation or a trip to the lower caves… Some of them at that time were fixed up with ladders so that they could see them. They could see how the outer rooms, they were timbered, you know, to make the two or three stories outside the cave dwellings. And then we would go up to the upper kiva, the one, the Ceremonial Cave up above…That was a good, hard climb for most people to get up there.
Interviewers : Did it have ladders then?
Ward : Had ladders, yes. They were very rough ladders, but they were substantial and most people would climb them. And of course one of the beauties of the canyon and of that trip was the beautiful river, the Rito de los Frijoles, which was always gurgling along as we walked by it. Interviewers : In New Mexico that's really nice to hear that. Mrs. Frey tells us that years ago the creek was substantially larger or more volume of flow than it is now. It was more like a river then? Ward : It was really a first class, beautiful mountain stream and it was a pleasure to walk along it and cross it on those log crossing bridges they had which you were supposed not to fall off them, of course…. |
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Interviewers : [The Abbots] had a fairly large-sized orchard down in the canyon then. Do you remember?
Ward : I don't think they had any orchard at all. I think they had a garden and the Indians, I believe, from San Ildefonso…They usually had a couple come over, man and wife, and lived here. They were very fortunate in having a very good supply of fertilizer over here under the bat caves. … They used that in their garden very extensively. That was one of their principal sources of fertility in the garden. And I was interested in the bats. Like I read about the bats down in Carlsbad Caverns. One of the few times that I have been over here in the evening and when I've stayed overnight, because ordinarily I don't stay here overnight. We generally brought the people over in the morning and left here about three in the afternoon for the trip back. But on the few occasions I was over here, I was always interested in going up to that bat cave and watching the bats come out at dusk and they came out by the thousands. … I've seen them come out of that cave just like a cloud. You know, like they do down at Carlsbad…
Interviewers : I was just curious if there's any one or two particular things that are changes, outside of man-made facilities, that you have noticed in the canyon from the early days? Are there any real changes, for example, the vegetation or anything like that that seems to be different or a change?
Ward : …Tthe big change, of course, is the method of getting into the canyon by automobile where before we used to have to walk down the trail and walk back up. Of course, you know the walk back up was always done at the hottest part of the afternoon … How is the Ceremonial Cave now? …
Interviewers : It's still there. They have the key to the inside yet and still the ladders leading up to it. But the ruins within the cave are no longer there except the cave ruins themselves.
Ward : I see. Well, I don't believe there's any particular ruins. On the floor they had found some Indian corn, I think, in the floor in the cave at one time, that dated quite a ways back. And I think they had restored the roof of the kiva at that time. … Several of the caves had been restored in those days. I mean the entrances had been bricked up a little bit and every once in a while there was someone who came out from Santa Fe that wanted to sleep in one of those caves overnight. I suppose you still have those.
Interviewers : Oh, once in a great while one will come but not like they used to, I guess. Sometimes they express that desire, but I doubt very much they're . . . .
Ward : Well, they actually did it . . . .
Interviewers : Did Judge Abbott used to stay here in the wintertime or was he here only in the summer? References mention a summer home.
Ward : To my knowledge, the Abbotts would leave at the close of the season and go back to Pennsylvania where her folks came from and spend the winter with their folks. Then in early June or May they would come back and open up things. Actually, it was impossible to get in here on account of those icing conditions I was telling you about. The roads were just, they weren't there till that ice melted. … I do know this - that every so often a big rock would roll down and I think at least one of them hit the rear of the house. But as you recall, the rear part of the house was almost into the side of the slope and so they never damaged. But some of those boulders. … I suppose you folks have them lying around there yet, that roll down.
Interviewers : Oh, yeah.
Ward : But they told me that several times they were badly frightened by those boulders coming down.
Interviewers : We've heard rock slides over here and it sounds like just the whole hillside is coming down. It will last for 30 seconds to a minute, sometimes for a couple of minutes. So I can imagine what it must have been like.
Ward : Well, they were a very wonderful couple and Mrs. Abbott was the more lively one of the two, being younger and she had a very heavy correspondence with people that had come in here and liked them so well that they would write back. And she had just piles of letters that were written to her by people that had visited and been entertained by them, like them…
Interviewers : Were there many wild animals up in this part of the country in those days, Mr. Ward?
Ward : I'm sure there were. If you stayed here overnight you could hear the mountain lions screaming and of course there [were] just a great number of skunks around here. They, I think, some of the Indian boys trapped 'em for the skins, you know. I was over here and stayed overnight her one night when one of 'em got caught in the trap, you know and let off a terrible screaming. So I got up then and I tried to help the Indian boy corral him, you know. I think I had a 30-30 with me, but you know, at close range, I couldn't seem to hit him. Finally he slugged him over the head with a club. But there were skunks in the canyon. But the mountain lions and the coyotes, I think, were the only ones. I don't think there were any wolves around at that time, but there were mountain lions. You could hear them scream at night.
Interviewers : What about the turkeys? Were they down here, too?
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Ward : Well, I outfitted a hunting trip . . . . a young man from Rochester, New York, I think it was, or Buffalo, and sent him out on a turkey hunt over in this very area and he came back with one turkey…. I have a picture of that, of him holding the turkey that he shot up here. I think they were all up on the south mesa towards Cochiti and that way…. Interviewers: Suppose the deer were plentiful? Ward : Now, that I don't know. Yes, I believe that the last time we were here we saw deer down there in the canyon. I guess they're around there all the time aren't they? More or less tame. … There was always a lot of deer hunting all through this country, though. Up around Taos, the Indians always hunted deer and some of them were very expert trailers of deers and, you know, would steal up on 'em without, you know, by quietly moving, and catch 'em. Some of 'em had quite good reputations as deer trailers… |
Interviewers : Was this the only road into this section or did the road go off into any other parts of the county?
Ward : Someone said there was. I don't believe there was any other entry into the canyon at that time. But I think some since then said there was a road went up to the western or upper end of the canyon and came in, but I'm not sure of that.
Interviewers : Were there roads off to, say, in a general direction of Los Alamos or up in that country or …
Ward : Well, of course, there was [the] school, you know. That was started at this time. And I think there had been a ranch house up about in the area where the school was located. I think that was there. I never knew too much about the …
END OF TAPE
The Los Alamos Historical Society would especially like to thank Yvonne Delamater, who first made contact with Ward's daughter, Marjory Hodges, which made obtaining the wonderful E.J. Ward photo collection possible.
Keeping Los Alamos History Alive
