Inside New Mexico’s Small-Town Museums
“YOU GO TO A MUSEUM to learn the heart of a town,” says Britney Swart, executive director of the Herzstein Memorial Museum in Clayton. I’m only a few steps inside, though, when she intuits a darker…
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Tag: Clayton
Three Trails Through New Mexico History
THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL The vital pack mule caravan route connected Santa Fe to Los Angeles throughout the 1830s and ’40s. Following established Native footpaths, the roughly 2,700-mile trail runs along…
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Historic Theaters Light Up Main Streets
OUT ON BULLARD STREET, the Silco Theater’s Art Deco marquee casts a pale neon wash across Silver City’s mostly darkened downtown. Just inside, checkerboard floors catch the low light as I slip into…
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Belly Up to the Old West
Editor's Note: Just over a week after we went to press with the November issue, the owners of the St. James Hotel announced on Facebook that the historic Cimarrón property was closing on September 17…
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The Story of Clayton's Dragon
THERE’S A DRAGON in Clayton. The seven-foot-long red metal beast slithers in and out of the exterior of a long-vacant building in the center of town. The four-piece dragon was designed, fabricated…
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Visit Three Hotels with Hidden History
Eklund Hotel “Around here, the Old West hasn’t died,” says Keith Barras, one of the owners and managers of the Eklund Hotel, in Clayton. Swedish immigrant Carl Eklund opened the inn in 1894, and it…
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Sleeping with Spirits
Clayton’s Hotel Eklund is home to a few ghosts. THE HOTEL EKLUND HAS HAD 125 YEARS to accumulate ethereal energy by offering comfortable accommodations, good food, and liberal libations to travelers…
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Essential Guide to Ghost Towns
GOOD HAUNTS Abandoned, barely there, or rebounding with new purpose, towns, hotels, and restaurants all across the state hold secret treasures: the stories of past lives. Chloride After the…
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Calling Clayton Home
Above: The Eklund Hotel in Clayton. Photographs by Gabriella Marks. WITH ITS COVEY OF COWBOY HATS, ranches, and prairie stillness, Clayton and its 2,763 residents exude a clear-cut Americana. Rabbit…
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