La Frontera del Llano Scenic Byway (the edge of the plains in Spanish) starts at Abbott, a place you’d think wouldn’t warrant a name if there weren’t a sign there to prove it. Most of the byway (NM 39) runs through Harding County, where cattle outnumber people seven to one. Read more…
Constructed 2008. Paint the Town started with some young people, a willing tutor, a little cash and a lot of hard work. The youth in the community came together to make a difference in this remote and unique part of New Mexico. Surrounded by ranch land, the towns of Mosquero Read more…
Constructed 1922. The Harding County Courthouse, in Mosquero, is a handsome Neo-classical building with strong Greek Revival style accents, originally built to serve the county as a school. Named for President Warren G. Harding, Harding County is the least populated of all New Mexico counties, with less than 800 residents. Read more…
The Goodnight-Loving Trail (sometimes known simply as the Goodnight Trail) ran from Young County, TX, southwest to Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, up the Pecos to Fort Sumner, NM, and on into Colorado. In 1866, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving drove a first herd of longhorn cattle over the Read more…
Constructed 1915. The Shuler Theater is a historic theater located in downtown Raton. Home to the local performing arts scene, you can see live plays, dramas, comedies, concerts and musical theater suitable for all ages. The foyer of the theater features eight mural panels created by Manville Chapman in 1934 Read more…
The Santa Fe Trail National Scenic Byway passes through multiple New Mexico MainStreet communities. The historic trail had two routes over time: the Mountain Route that went through Raton with its important pass into Colorado; and the Cimarron Route, which cut across the eastern plains of New Mexico and passed Read more…
Constructed 1904 Raton’s distinctive Mission Revival style railroad depot is an interesting variation of the California Mission Style, which was adopted by the Santa Fe Railroad as its trademark architectural style in the 1890s. The Raton depot originally featured an octagonal waiting room with a tower roof which matched a Read more…
Joseph A. Fleck was commissioned to paint two murals in the Raton Post Office, “Butterfield Mail” and “Unloading Mail at Raton”, the first depicting Taos Indians and Raton miners in 1849 reading mail delivered by a scout on a white horse. The other mural focuses on the local mail system Read more…
Constructed 1930 This one-story Art Deco-style building, constructed between 1930 and 1948, includes a white, horizontal tiled exterior. A stepped geometric parapet crowns the facade, and a large glass block opening with fluting above curves around the corner at the intersection of Second Street and Clark Avenue. The exterior veneer Read more…
Constructed 1930. Developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Raton Downtown Historic District contains fine examples of the Romanesque Revival, Italianate, and Queen Anne styles, as well as the later Decorative Brick Commercial and Mission and Spanish Colonial Revival styles of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. The Read more…