Story of Taos

The Taos that so enchanted painters Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips on that now-fabled day in the summer of 1898 already had a long history—a history that began with the ancestors of today’s pueblo Indians. The Taos Pueblo with its multi-storied buildings and its setting in the shadow of the great mountains, remains the link from these early inhabitants of the valley to the still-living native culture. There is evidence that man has lived in the Taos area as far back as 3,000 B.C. and actual prehistoric ruins dating from A.D. 900-1300 can be seen throughout the Taos Valley.

Seventeen years after that wagon wheel broke, Blumenschein, Phillips and four other artists formed the now famous Taos Society of Artists. The society succeeded in its aim of promoting their works and played a role in attracting other artists to Taos, which today retains its reputation as a center for the arts.

Taos history has been filled with a stream of individualists and colorful characters—from villains to visionaries, outlaws to heiresses, movie stars to hippies. Some say that Taos is not a place—it’s a state of mind.

By the time of Blumenschein’s discovery of Taos, the community had also been the home of Spanish settlers and their descendants for some 300 years. Padre Antonio José Martínez, one of the best known Taos leaders of the 19th century, was born in Abiquiu, the small town southwest of Taos that was to gain fame in the 20th century as the home of painter Georgia O’Keeffe.

Martínez, a Catholic priest who went to Taos in the 1820’s, may be best known for his battles with Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy. Disagreements over church matters finally led to the popular priest’s excommunication. An educational as well as a spiritual leader, Padre Martínez is also remembered for having introduced the printing press to the small mountain community and founding the first newspaper in the region in 1834.

The priest showed a prescient understanding of some of the changes that would come with the Anglo settlement of northern New Mexico, which was well under way in the mid-1800s. According to Erna Fergusson, author of New Mexico, A Pageant of Three Peoples, Padre Martínez compared the American government in New Mexico to a burro and predicted that “on this burro, lawyers will ride, not priests.”

Acontemporary of Padre Martínez was Christopher (Kit) Carson, Indian scout, Army officer and mountain man. Carson’s life was full of contradictions. He killed Apache warriors but adopted an Apache orphan (among other foster children) and spoke several Indian languages. He married a famous Taos beauty of the respected Jaramillo family, Josefa, who survived the deadly attack that ended Governor Bent’s life in the Revolt of 1847. The Carson home is now a museum in the historic district.

Over the years, Taos has been home to many well-known people, including one of the great literary figures of the 20th century, D.H. Lawrence. Lawrence and his wife Frieda had been invited to New Mexico by wealthy socialite and arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan. Luhan, an Easterner who had fallen in love with Taos—and a Taos Indian, Tony Luhan—cherished a utopian vision of bringing celebrated writers and artists to Taos to form a unique community of kindred spirits who would relate to the Pueblo Indians “natural” view of the world. (The Mabel Dodge Luhan House today is an historic inn and conference center; actor/filmmaker Dennis Hopper, of “Easy Rider” fame, owned it as his residence in the early ‘70s.)

The Lawrences lived in Taos intermittently between 1922 and 1925. Their ranch north of Taos was the only home that they ever owned, a good part of their life having been on the move, in temporary housing. Although he died in the south of France, Lawrence’s remains were later brought to Taos where they are enshrined in a chapel (along with Frieda’s grave) at the D.H. Lawrence Ranch, now a property of the University of New Mexico.

Lawrence’s writings of New Mexico are fairly well known, but the impressions of another famous visitor to Taos have received less attention. Carl Jung, the influential Swiss psychological pioneer, visited New Mexico in 1924-25. He tells of his talk with a chief of the Taos Pueblo—Jung’s first real conversation with a non-European. Sitting on the roof of the main building at Taos Pueblo, Jung listened to the Indian speak of his belief that the “the sun is God” and “all life comes from the mountain.” ...[I]t was a novel and deeply affecting experience for me to see this mature, dignified man in the grip of an overmastering emotion when he spoke of it,” Jung said, and concludes, “Such a man is in the fullest sense of the word in his proper place.”

(Jung’s essay will be found in The Spell of New Mexico, 1976, Tony Hillerman, editor.)

Historic Ledoux Street

Just off Camino de la Placita, behind Taos Plaza, lies narrow, serpentine Ledoux Street. It was named for two French fur trappers, Abraham and Antoine Ledoux. The tiny lane hugs a high ridge where several adobe dwellings were built in the early 19th century. Taos was then the center of a flourishing fur trade, blessed by the abundance of beaver in the streams fed by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

With the influx of artists after the turn of the 20th century, Ledoux Street became Taos’ first art district, filled with small galleries and artists painting picturesque scenes of the neighborhood. Strolling down Ledoux today there is evidence of a strong renaissance on the street: old adobe buildings that once stood in ill repair have been renovated and restored and beckon you with a story to tell.

Walking west down Ledoux, one arrives at Bosshard Fine Art Furnishings, an amazing collection of tribal art and primitive and colonial antiques. Next door is the Navajo Gallery, where the art of R.C. Gorman, prolific Native American artist, is shown. Imaginative and gregarious, Gorman opened his gallery in 1968. Since then, visitors have continued to seek out this artist’s works which encompass brilliant portraits, bronzes, lithographs and pottery of earthy women swathed in brightly-colored garb. Just past Navajo gallery is Rane Gallery, a lovely courtyard gallery, where one will find the art of long-time Taos artist Bill Rane.

A little farther down on the same side of Ledoux Street, visit the historic home and studio of Ernest L. Blumenschein. The New York artist arrived a century ago, along with traveling partner Bert G. Phillips, thus planting the seed that sprouted into the famous Taos Society of Artists.

Farther down is one of the most beloved buildings in Taos, known to Taoseños as “The Harwood”. The original one-story structure was purchased in 1916 by photographer Burrit (Burt) Elihu Harwood and his wife Lucy Case, who was known to everybody as “Elizabeth.”

The Harwoods were surprised to learn that Taos had no library, so Elizabeth opened a lending library from her front portal in the summertime to hand out books from her collection. Thus began the Harwood Library. Today the rejuvenated Harwood Foundation Museum of the University of New Mexico houses a marvelous art collection, including “Winter Funeral” by Victor Higgins, “Santiago, the War Chief” by Oscar Berninghaus and the Agnes Martin Gallery of abstract art.

Bill Hemp • Taos author Bill Hemp is the author and illustrator of “Taos Landmarks and Legends.” Edited by Barbara J. Harrelson • Barbara Harrelson is a local writer and editor who also conducts a literary walking tour of Santa Fe.