Once upon a time, Las Vegas ( Spanish for ‘the springs’) was a prosperous destination place.  Fred Harvey had built a resort hotel, and trains brought tourists.   The Plaza hotel, which is on the plaza, was rather swanky at one time.   Management have just re-swanked it and apparently the movie ‘John Carpenter’s “Vampires”‘ was made right here.

That movie could have played at the curiously named ‘Serf’ theater.

It’s been years since Las Vegas was prosperous, so there is lots of lovely decay to photograph.   Back when I was in college, I remember one of my professors * used to come to Las Vegas every weekend to photograph things.  (I saw that he later published a book of photographs of concentration camps, but I would rather see his Las Vegas.)

Like this lovely old bank that sits catty-corner to the Plaza Hotel, across the plaza.

This building is a remnant of the railroad tourist boom.   Fred Harvey did a lively trade in flogging Navajo art and rugs to the tourists.  Some of it was tourist quality and some of it was museum quality.   The core holdings of the Heard Museum in Phoenix came from the Fred Harvey collection.

There is a group of investors who bought the old railroad hotel and are attempting to modernize it and make Las Vegas a destination resort again.   Perhaps it will actually happen, perhaps it will stay the same.

• The first time I ever went to Las Vegas was for a class assignment from this professor.   It was to visit the State Mental Hospital.

Here are more random shots of New Mexico.    I was standing on the porch looking over at Santa Clara Mesa.   Somewhere over there is the original village.   When the railroad came, they picked up the town and moved it by the tracks.

I was still standing on the porch, looking north.  That large pine tree is in Grandma’s yard.

Bits of the village, I remember when the cafe was open briefly (18 years ago), but mostly it has always been closed.

An elk crossing, but no elk were using it at the time.

The lonesome road into town.

Uncle Si’s truck.  He bought it new in 1930 and never sold it, even when he bought the new one in 1952.

Raton (named for the Spanish word for rat) is the first town (village?) that you come to in New Mexico after going over the pass.   Miss P and I stopped in on our way south and they were having a little music/street festival. And I love to go to local festivals so we gave it a quick cruise.  (Miss P does not like them unless she gets something to eat, or finds something to eat on the ground.)

I don’t think people wear much tie-dye anymore, but it was available.

Marchiando’s store is still there after 102 years.

The beautiful stone building must have been a hotel at one time.

It was built to last.  And it lasted longer than the need.

Some folks going for an old time wagon ride.

The movie house was having a cowboy poetry reading.   Not quite as obnoxious as a poetry slam, cowboy poems are often funny or sentimental versions of a cowboy’s life.

And before the railroad came, Raton was part of the Santa Fe Trail.   Until they put in the modern highway, the road was a series of switchbacks up to the summit at 7800+ feet.   Must have been fun (not).