Episode 97 – You can also listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and Amazon Music

About the Episode:

The second part of Bunny’s conversation with John Mulhouse about his love for all things “abandoned” in New Mexico.  Mulhouse spent almost a decade documenting the forgotten corners of New Mexico through his popular City of Dust project.  Find out more about him and his amazing photography in this episode and at the links provided.

Links:
Buy John’s Books
Kevin McDevitt’s “History of the St. James Hotel”
Folsom Museum Facebook page
City of Dust blog
City of Dust Facebook page
City of Dust Instagram: @cityofdustnm
Email John: jmhouse@cityofdust.com
Bunny’s website
I Love New Mexico Instagram
I Love New Mexico Facebook

Original Music by: Kene Terry

Featuring:

John Mulhouse

John Mulhouse is a photographer and historian who blends photography and history to explore abandoned places in the United States. His work focuses on learning about the history of these places, including who lived there, what they were like in their heyday, and why they were abandoned. Mulhouse believes that people respond most to abandoned buildings with character.

Mulhouse’s interest in abandoned places began when he moved to Augusta, Georgia and became fascinated by empty old buildings, some dating back before the Civil War. He identified with these buildings, which were once full of life and hope, and has since photographed abandoned places across the country. He also has a blog called cityofdust.blogspot.com that pays homage to what he calls “the lost and wondrous wreckage of America”. 

Mulhouse spent almost a decade documenting the forgotten corners of New Mexico through his popular City of Dust project. One of his most popular photos is a sunset shot of a former church in Taiban, New Mexico. 

Bio provided from: The Taos News and CNN

Episode Transcript

Bunny : (00:00)
Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry, and you’re listening to the I Love New Mexico podcast. Whether you’re a native new Mexican, who’s lived here for your entire life, or you’re just considering a visit, this episode is for you. Join us as we share a lot of New Mexico stories, talk about all things New Mexico, and include topics like what’s magical here, where you ought to visit, what’s happening, and the things you absolutely cannot miss in the land of Enchantment. We’re excited that you’re here, and we can’t wait to show you what an amazing place New Mexico is, because let’s face it, I love New Mexico. Welcome Back to the I Love New Mexico podcast. For those of you who missed last week’s episode with John Mulhouse, I’m just gonna tell you right now, stop, go back and listen to it, because I want you to know all about what John and I covered in the first half hour that we, when we talked about his book, abandoned New Mexico Ghost Towns Endangered Architecture and Hidden History. Um, John’s done an amazing job of ma of creating a very accessible, um, book that that’s ab you know, it’s all about, um, places that are perhaps still inhabited. Almost all of them are still inhabited, whether it’s, you know, clach that has seven people, or, um, you talked about Clayton, where I, I think the, um, population is up over perhaps 2000 in a, anyway, I you, you were all over the state. John moved here and lived for a decade, has a, uh, blog, a Facebook page, and an Instagram page, um, about, um, recording history in his own special way, which is photographing and learning about abandoned buildings and sometimes abandoned farms and is, I’m sorry, towns and, and, and some farms, I suspect.

Bunny : (02:17)
But, in the first episode, we talked, John, about how, um, you say in your introduction that what you felt was just as important as what you saw. And then you said, um, on the second page of that introduction, I underlined this. That’s what I do with books, but you did a great job at this. You say, my goal is to give every building and town the affection and respect it deserves. And that’s probably one of the reasons why I personally love this so well, because you did that in such a special way. So, to the listeners out there, check out the first episode, and I’m going to, um, jump right to my favorite part of the book, which is Northeastern New Mexico. You said in our last episode, John, that you, when you first came to New Mexico, you went through Clayton. Let’s talk about Clayton. It’s so fascinating, and I can, I, if there’s somebody from Texas listening, they’re gonna say, really, Clayton? I mean, I drive through there every time we go to, to, to Red River, to go skiing or to Taos or to Colorado. And, uh, and and you did a great job of, of letting us know how cool and how special Clayton was.

John : (03:36)
Um, yeah, you know, it’s interesting. Clayton looms very large in, in my, my personal history too. I mean, it is the first place I photographed in New Mexico. I was passing through with my mom and we, we ate at the Ecklund Hotel, and I just thought, wow, this is, this feels like a great place to be, like in this historic hotel having, I think we were having, you know, enchiladas or something like that. And, um, I maybe took just a handful of photos, five or six, and it never occurred to me in 2005 the amount of time that I’d be spending in Clayton. I’ve been back many, many times, um, and have kind of, I think I’ve photographed, well, I I shouldn’t say thoroughly. Um, I, I, you know, you’re never done photographing a place where there’s always something new, but I’ve definitely covered more than I ever thought I would’ve in Clayton. I’ve stayed at the Ecklund a few more times now, and I would love to be back. Um, anytime. Actually, it’s, it’s, um, you know, you, the, the photos that I, historic photos you see are the ones of the Dust Bowl coming towards Claytonthe black Rollers. There’s some incredible photos. ’cause that area was very close to the epicenter of the Dust Bowl. And so it, it was a tough place, a tough place to be. Um, and I was very sad to hear that Isaac’s Hardware store recently closed such a, such a great store and been there for, you know, a century, I think. Um, and so it, that’s indicative of the struggles of a lot of these places is, you know, when you lose an institution like Isaac’s, irreplaceable. And, uh, that’s, that’s sad. So that’s part of the affection in the documentation is just trying to capture these places and, and, um, show how important they are.

Bunny : (05:28)
Well, well, and the Ecklund was, just so folks know, it built in 1892, um, and still, um, I know it’s changed hands a couple of times in the last couple of de decades, but still a place where you can spend the night and get a meal, right?

John : (05:45)
Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think, I can’t re you know, off the top of my head, I’m gonna mess this up, but it was considered like the grandest hotel between like maybe Denver and Dallas at one point or something. I’m not sure I’m getting those two. It’s in the book. I can’t, I can’t remember off the top of my head, but it was, it was a very important, um, place and a lot of, you know, livestock, uh, deals went on and the shipping of livestock out of that area, and it’s still a beautiful, beautiful hotel.

Bunny : (06:18)
Well, we gotta we gotta tell this story about Blackjack, Ketchum, and it’s, I mean, there’s, there’s, um, there’s, there’s an interesting story about how he ended up being in, in Clayton, but I do, um, you tell the story, then I wanna tell you my little bit of connection that I have to that event, but let people know what happened to Blackjack.

John : (06:42)
Yeah, so, so blackjack, he was, uh, he was an outlaw and he was part of the Ketchum gang with his, his brother, I think it was the Ketchum gang off the top of my head. I might have that wrong too. But he was part of the gang with his brother. Um, and his, his brother and the rest of the gang robbed a train without him, and then he decided he was gonna come back. He didn’t know that they’d robbed a train, I don’t believe he came back and tried to rob a train on his own in this, basically in the same area. And at that point, the engineer had had enough, you know, this is happening again. And so shot blackjack, knocking him off the train, took off most of his arm. There’s some differences in what happened next. I think it’s most likely that he just laid out there on the side of the tracks for hours and hours until finally the posse found him on the ground. Um, and then they took him to jail. Um, he ended up in the Folsom Hotel, oddly enough, on his way to Santa Fe. He had his arm amputated, they brought him back to, to Clayton. Um, he was sentenced to hang, he’s the only person ever executed for a train robbery, I believe. And Union County was not, uh, they weren’t familiar with how to hang people. They, this was their one and only, uh, execution by hanging. And so they thought, well, we’re gonna, um, make sure that this rope is, is stretched, we’re gonna make it nice and taught. So they like, I think, hung a rock on it overnight or something like that. And so it had no spring to it. So when they finally did hang blackjack there, there was no give to the, it was just like, it just de decapitated it, you know, there was no give to the rope at all. And there’s gruesome pictures of him like lying on the ground. Now he is got no arm, he is got no head . Um, he, he’s in pretty, it’s pretty gruesome, and the photos are gruesome. I, I believe the sheriff got very drunk before the execution, so that didn’t help. Um, and then even the burial is, is wild, like the word is that it was, the rumor was that they buried him facing hell, they buried him facing down. I think they eventually had to move his grave and took a look. And that was not the case like that, that was, that was a that was folklore, but unfortunately that Union County is known for, for having one of the most botched hangings in the, in the wild West.

Bunny : (09:08)
So when I was a student in New Mexico State in I would say 1979, I got a job. And, and I, I was thrilled to get it, but it was because that was, I was working on a degree in history, but it was with the Rio Rio Grande Historical Society, which was housed in the library on campus. And, um, it was a work study job. So of course, they couldn’t give me anything too complex. But one of the things that I, one of the jobs I had was to catalog the series of photos and I’m, I’m saying boxes and boxes and boxes of photos, um, from a guy who was a photographer in Roswell. And he had, um, in the, like from 1870 to about 1920, I mean, there was like this 50 year span of photos that he, and, and, and I, um, like work study, um, student stew, do I, you know, spent a lot of time just, you know, and there were photos of, of families and there were photos of houses and architectural photos and, you know, photos of them doing things on the grounds at, at New Mexico Military Institute. And then one day I get to this set of photos that are from the hanging of Black Jack Ketchum, and I didn’t know what it was, and there were about 14 or 15 photos that the, and he had taken them, he had gone to the hanging and taken these photos. And I go into, um, I wish I could remember the name of the gentleman who ran the, who was the ED of the Historical Society at the time. You know, I wore white gloves. And you know, just had the student going through everything. And I took them in there to him, and he was like, this is the, this is the most, this is the most important thing we’ve found in years. Yeah. And

John : (11:04)
Wow.

Bunny : (11:05)
So I, but the first time I looked at I couldn’t figure it out. And he had just written in pencil on the back of these photos, execution of Blackjack, Ketchum, Clayton, New Mexico. So, um, so that’s my blackjack story.

John : (11:23)
So where are those photos? Are they digitized and available? I

Bunny : (11:26)
Have, well, online

John : (11:28)
Or

Bunny : (11:28)
It’s been a

John : (11:29)
While. They don’t ring a bell.

Bunny : (11:31)
Um, you might, we might take a look at the Rio Grande Historical Society and see if they, I mean, it seems I didn’t digitize them one of the other great. Um, and I, and this just reminds me because we all have these New Mexico stories. One of the other great jobs I had while I was there was that I had the, um, ledger books of, of, of prominent family. It, it wasn’t, um, anybody whose name I can recall now who lived on the, um, Maxwell Land Grant. So I had these huge ledger books that I was micro filming in this back room forever and ever. So, so you just never know where, where that stood. But it gave me this huge love for primary documents.

John : (12:19)
I wonder where that is too. So that’s an actual record of everybody that was on the Maxwell. Is that, so what, what was the time span? Was that, oh,

Bunny : (12:27)
I couldn’t tell you.

John : (12:29)
Like, but it was a, a number of years.

Bunny : (12:32)
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. It was a stack of ledger books that was taller almost than me. My job was just to microfilm them. So, so it’s somewhere we just gotta go to Las Cruces and get in those microfiche. Um, yeah.

John : (12:48)
Yeah. Wow, that’s really interesting. I’d like to like to see that. I should throw in a plug for the Folsum Museum, which has a wonderful display of historic blackjack, ketchum memorabilia, including the strange little fake gallows that were built as souvenirs. Like they look like they’re made out of toothpicks or something. And you could buy a gallow with blackjack on the gallows, little, little souvenir. And they have some of those on display at the, at the museum

Bunny : (13:18)
In Folsom. So I didn’t, I didn’t know there was a museum at Folsom, and we should tell folks, I mean, Folsom is out in the middle of nowhere.

John : (13:26)
Folsom is, yes. You’re almost to Colorado. You’re, you’re getting close to Colorado and Folsom. But Folsom in the old Dougherty Mercantile building is a wonderful museum. Um, Folsom is where they found the Folsom points. So it’s got like a really, um, important sort of archeological history. Um, it’s also, as I mentioned, where Blackjack spent the night in the Folsom Hotel, which is still there right across the street from the, from the, uh, the general store, really incredible hotel too. Um, but the museum has all kinds of regional, um, artifacts. Everything from like Spanish saber to Saber-tooth, or saber-tooth tiger, wooly mammoth tusks, um, just a really great, great museum. I think it might be by appointment only, but they do great tours too. They do a dry Cimarron tour. They do a, um, Folsom Point tour. So definitely worth getting in touch with the Folsom Museum and, and getting on their, their, uh, notification list.

Bunny : (14:31)
Okay, that’s on my list. This is the year when we are, um, just traveling to, to forgotten places in New Mexico. So I’m gonna put that in. But one of the places that isn’t forgotten that we have talked about a lot on this podcast, and I just want folks to know that they can learn a lot more about it in your book, is the St. James. I mean, what an interesting place. I mean, I’m, I’m, I won’t spend the night in the old part of the hotel because it seems a little, um, a little too populated with, um, perhaps malevolent spirits. How did you find it?

John : (15:09)
Well, I slept pretty well. Um, my partner and I at the time stayed in Rose’s Room, which is one of the ones that’s haunted. And I woke up in the morning, I said, oh, that seemed fine to me. It wasn’t fine to her. She said, I didn’t sleep a wink. I just sat there lying in bed with my eyes open all night long, and it felt like someone was watching me. So ,

Bunny : (15:30)
I hear that. So, so the St. James in Cimarron, which has its own really colorful history, I mean, where in the state was there more, um, violence. I mean, that was all over the Maxwell Land Grant, right? I mean,

John : (15:46)
St the the Santa Fe rang all those guys. Yeah, yeah. There was a lot, there was a lot of stuff happening. And, and the St. James had, its had its share as well. Yeah. Um, there’s a really good book on the history of the St. James Hotel written by Kevin McDevitt. He went through and, and compiled all the history he could find. Um, and he might be worth having on the show as well. He’s, he’s an expert on the St. James and Cimarron in general, and he’s my go-to, I had him actually vet the chapter on the St. James in the book, just to make sure I I got it right. I figured. Well, if he gives it the thumbs up, then it’s good.

Bunny : (16:21)
Okay. So we’ll have to find that and provide a link to his book as well. But then I love that you, um, also went to Springer. I mean, that’s another place. And, and, and there were things, I mean, I, I’ve known about Mills Canyon all my life and have gone there, um, not in decades, but you, I I’ve learned a lot. I mean, here I am, I think I, I know little teeny tiny bits about New Mexico, but you did a great to tell, tell folks who, who Mills was.

John : (16:55)
So, mills was a member of the Santa Fa ring. He built an incredible house that still stands in Springer, the Mills mansion, just incredible territorial architecture. It’s, it’s not in very good shape, but it was situated on the Santa Fe Trail. It’s supposedly some of it, possibly the, um, most ornate, I guess maybe is the term architecture on the trail. You could see both parts of the trail from the balcony, I’m told. You could see the mountain route, you could see the, the dust, I believe, um, from the mountain route from his, from his, uh, balcony when there were people on the trail. Um, so people would come off the trail and just stop at his stop at his house. He, with his, his money, went and created this incredible farm in Orchard, in, in Mills Canyon with thousands, tens of thousands of fruit trees.

John : (17:54)
There’s a hotel down there. And then the Canadian River flooded and washed it all away. And that was the end of his foot. He never recovered from that. And he’s, he’s definitely a conflicted figure. The more you look into his, his life, the more you think Well, this, he’s, he’s got, he’s got kind of a, a shady past. He died sort of tragically. It’s interesting. There’s a lot of mythology about how he died. And just before the book went to press, I was going with the common story, which is that he requested that he be allowed to die in the mansion at the end of his life. That he asked the owner of Mansion, I wanna Die in the Mansion. And that request was granted. And he did die in the mansion. His death made the front page of the Springer Newspaper.

John : (18:43)
And it doesn’t mention that it said he died in his home. And granted the Mansion was his home at one point, but it wasn’t his home when he died. So I, and I recently heard from someone else that was involved, uh, one of the families that owned, owned the Mansion at one point. And, and they kind of pushed back on that and said, no, actually he did die in the mansion. And I said, well, all I got is the primary source, this, the newspaper. Um, but the Mansion itself gets a lot of attention just because it is, it’s an incredible structure. And I’ve got some pictures in the Book of the Mansion, um, and I was back there maybe two years ago, and it’s, unfortunately, it’s, it’s changed owners a few times, and everybody wants to, you know, restore these places. And it’s just really difficult. And I, I get asked a lot, like, why can’t we save these places? Why can’t we save? And it’s just, it’s money. I mean, oh, it’s,

Bunny : (19:37)
It’s prohibitive. I mean you know I’m a realtor here and my husband’s a builder. Builder, and I, I mean it just to take on a project like that, it, it’s, it’s, you could spend millions. And I remember seeing it, I think it was on the market about four years ago. Um, and it showed up in the Santa Fe MLS, and I thought We should buy that house. He’s like, oh, no. Are you crazy? You, you also hit on, um, one of the chapters in your book is about the old pen, the, the state penitentiary, which is a really important and, um, horrific part of our history. That had to be a place where you thought, I gotta get outta here. Right? When, when you were in there.

John : (20:27)
Yeah, that was, that was creepy. So that was another strange deal where there was a time when you, we, we, a friend of mine was in touch with a former guard who won’t, I don’t even remember his name, so I can’t name names, but you could give him 20 bucks and he would take you to the, take a group of people to the, the pen and let you run around for four hours. Also. Can’t do that anymore. can’t do that. So he’s just opened the door, said, meet me back here in four hours. And it was, it was pretty, I mean, spooky is not even the word. You can, the burn marks were still on the forward. The prisoners had been, had been burned, and there were still like hatchet marks where people had had their, their limbs cut off by other prisoners. And it did lead to prison reform in the sense that they were keeping, keeping the criminals and the people that informed on those criminals in the same wing. So once the prisoners got out, they went looking for revenge. And of course, it was a botched job from the beginning because the guards did not follow protocol. Um, they did not close the doors behind them. And so when the guards were overcome, the prisoners were able to run right out into the control room and just be like, let’s all, let’s all go out. And it was a, it was a bad, I can’t remember, um, how long it lasted right now, but it was, it was like

Bunny : (21:49)
36 hours,

John : (21:50)
Or I think it was 36. Yeah, it was more than a day.

Bunny : (21:53)
I remember it. I was, um, um, it was in 1988, right? 88, 17 82, 82,

John : (22:00)
I believe. Two.

Bunny : (22:01)
So I was 22 years old. I do, I remember when it happened because I was living in Farmington, and I was like, what in the world is going on? But, um, but, but we had not done a great job of, of keeping populations, um, at the numbers they should have been. So that’s, that’s an, I think people will find that a really interesting chapter. Um, and it’s a, I mean, it’s a dark piece of our history, but it is a piece of it. So,

John : (22:27)
Yeah, it’s interesting ’cause I had that originally further up in the book at the start, and one of my editors, a friend of mine, said, this is really good information and it’s important, but maybe you should move it to the back of the book so people aren’t hit with this right off .

Bunny : (22:44)
Right, right,

John : (22:45)
Right off the bat, I was contacted by one of the photographers that went into the prison, and he, he’s, he’s still in therapy. He said that that going in there to photograph those scenes was so traumatic that he’s never recovered. And he, oddly enough said that, um, that was the second worst crime he’d ever come across. And the, the worst was a crime in Logan, which I think involved a family.

Bunny : (23:10)
Oh, I, yeah, my dad, um, that was, that was a family that we all knew quite well. And it was the Petra side where a father killed his entire, his four children and his wife, and then himself. And my dad was one, because we all went to church together. My dad was one of the first people who went in and one of those murders occurred on a beanbag chair, like with, he held a child and, and my dad would never allow us to have a beanbag chair. And, you know, it was the seventies I wanted. And he was like, I was 13 years old when that happened. So, um, uh, that gives me a chill just to think about it. But, um, I was talking to my husband about the Prison Riot, and he knew, um, the, of course, ’cause everybody knows everybody in, especially in Santa Fe at that time, it was a much smaller city, but he knew the guy who ran the, the funeral home where they took those, was it 14? I think there were, well there were two inmates that they really never found.

John : (24:16)
They assumed they were incinerated. Yeah.

Bunny : (24:19)
But took all the other bodies. And he said, I cannot, I can never, ever, ever get that, you know, that’s, that lives those, you know, and he was a professional who did that. So I wanna skip now to something I’m really, I’m really interested in. And I, this is one of the places I really wanna go, and I’m not, um, very well, I, you know, I’ve been to Silver City a number of times, um, even as a child used to go down to the bus driver school every summer at Western New Mexico. But, um, that part of the country, the Silver City, the Hillsborough, the Gila and Fort Bayard, I’m really interested in that. What, tell me about how you found that part of the state.

John : (25:04)
Well, the, you know, I think I first found it, um, just when I moved to New Mexico, maybe I’d been there two years or so, and we went down on a little weekend trip to Silver City, and it was just like this magical area. It was just, I remember being there in the evening and the lights were on, and you can walk by the ravine that’s next to the, next to this, the town, this kind of, it’s where the town used to be before it got flooded, there was a, a bad flood uhhuh. And, but you can, they’ve, they’ve made this walking path and you can go down and kind of walk down in the ravine and it’s really, it’s just, again, it’s what you feel. It’s just very evocative. Um, and then that area, because of the mining, it’s just a gold town. Uh, you know, gold mine, , ghost Town, gold mine.

John : (25:52)
Um, because there is, there’s, there’s Hillsborough, there’s Lake Valley, which is a wonderful ghost town that’s managed by the PLM. And it’s, it’s fairly, I mean, a lot of it’s burned, but what’s there is, is maintained ’cause of that, or it’s not actively falling down. Um, there’s the remains of Kingston, there’s not much left there, but Kingston is interesting. Um, there’s just a ton. Even Pineo Altos, which is not a ghost town per se, um, is just a beautiful place to go and take a look around. You can find some historic structures there as well. It’s just that high altitude Hela environment, you know, the pinon juniper, it’s just a, it smells, you get the smells and the, um, especially when it rains, just, you know, those, those smells come off the vegetation. And it’s just, it’s really a special place. And I, I know people that are extremely fond of it and, and would probably never go anywhere else.

Bunny : (26:52)
Well, and there’s the Gila Wilderness, which I think this again is anecdotal, I’ll have to look it up, but is one of the largest wilderness areas, areas in the United States. And, and so all of these towns, um, are sort of lie on the edge, right? I mean, they’re not right in the middle of the healer wilderness, but, um, uh, Hillsborough, it’s, I mean, didn’t it sort of, uh, have a renaissance for a while? Is it extremely hip place to move? Is that, didn’t Sam Shepherd move in ?

John : (27:24)
It became, um, for, there were a lot of people moving their, um, retirees mostly. And it did, it did have a little boom. And I think it’s kind of having some, some problems. I know some of the businesses have closed and some of the restaurants have closed. The, um, main cafe is still open. It’s a great cafe. Um, but they have lost a couple of their businesses. And it is, it is remote. It’s, and it is on the edge of the Gila. The Gila is I think also the first wilderness area.

Bunny : (27:53)
It is, that’s right. Yeah.

John : (27:56)
And it’s just, I haven’t gone too deep into it. But there, there is muggy own, which is another fantastic ghost town, and there’s a ghost town of Hermosa, which is on the edge of the Hilo, which is now a biological research station based out of the Old Ghost town of Hermosa. And I’m trying to find a way to, uh, parlay my, whatever credentials I have into a visit to Hermosa. At some point, I can do the biology or the ghost town, either one, just get me to Hermosa one of these days.

Bunny : (28:24)
And it, it’s

John : (28:25)
Us remote.

Bunny : (28:26)
We could talk for a really long time, but I don’t want to fail to let all of my friends, um, out on the Llano Estacado know that you did not, you did not fail to hang out in places like Cozy and Pep. And I, um, I think we should explain to folks who don’t understand, um, you know, we probably got somebody listening in Scotland or in Dubai. What, what is the staked plains? Because it’s, it’s hard to understand if you’ve never been here.

John : (29:00)
Yeah. So the Staked Plains is a massive table land, which means that it’s just a massive flat expanse of landscape that goes from Eastern New Mexico way into Texas. Um, it presented a lot of challenges for the Spanish because it was so flat that the mythology is that it was so flat that people didn’t know what direction they were going. They didn’t know how to get back to where they’d come from. And so there’s a lot of thought about why it’s called the staked plane. Some of it’s, they had to use, um, sort of stakes to follow their way back to where they came from, like breadcrumbs or something. And then there’s some thought that that’s a mistranslation. It’s actually should be ponded planes, which mean, you know, when it rains, there’s these kind of bowls that are shallow that would fill with water and they could be ponded.

John : (29:54)
So there, the actual way that the name came about is a little bit mysterious, but the area itself, again, what you feel out there is just this massive expanse of flat table. And it’s sometimes called the cap rock because there’s very hard rock under the soil. Um, and it begins like kind of around Thai ban, and then it just goes eastward into Texas and it’s a very, very unique area and, and often overlooked. And I did, I actually, there’s a lot of ghost towns out there, so I, I hit it pretty hard and someone just sent me a great history of the grocery store in house, which when I was there you could still see that it said Sunshine Grocery over the top of the building. And he contacted me and sent me this great history saying, this was my family’s grocery store. We called it the Cornett. His name was Cornett, um, grocery store at that time. And gave me his whole family history being in the area of house in McAllister, some of the, some of the stakes plain towns.

Bunny : (30:56)
Well, any, I, so I know all of it. Having grown up in Logan, um, when you play sports, especially in the seventies when I was there, um, Logan was similar in size to House and Grady and Fort Sum. I mean, we, you get on an activity bus and you drive three or four hours to play a basketball game or, and, and so I spent a lot of time in house. I had a cousin who raised her family in house. Some of my best friends. My first college roommate was a young woman who her name was Claire and she, her family, her dad was a farmer in house, and her mom was the home ec teacher. So I know that neck of the woods very well. And, um, and I love that you went to house, which

John : (31:45)
Is, so you probably know that building, it’s the semi circuit, it’s got the curve top. Yeah. So I’m gonna post that on the Facebook page. ’cause his description of, of owning that grocery store, his family’s time there and, and why they had to leave and like, I gotta, I gotta put that up on the Facebook page.

Bunny : (32:01)
But yeah, I thought it was fun that, you know, my mom had a friend from Pep and yeah, these places had such great names. But, um, anyway, IIII just want folks to know that this, you created something really cool with this book. What is, I appreciate that. Is this in, um, Moriarty,

John : (32:25)
That is actually in Tucumcari. That is on the western side of Route 66 is your

Bunny : (32:33)
Town. Yes.

John : (32:35)
And it’s still there. It’s in much worse shape than it is on the cover of the book. And it’s out in front of an old empty former antique store called Things.

Bunny : (32:44)
Right. I know that place. Yes,

John : (32:46)
It was the home of a veteran who lived in it, and when he passed away, it’s just, it’s just stayed there. So he lived in the back, um, and he was an artist to sell some things at, at, um, at the antique store. And someone had a piece of his that they were gonna give to me. And I haven’t been able to get it, but I would be really interested to get a piece of his artwork since his vehicle’s on the front of the book.

Bunny : (33:10)
So I think this is, well, and I think it’s true of many of your photos, but I think this is a piece that you could, um, turn into a print and market and sell, at least to me.

John : (33:20)
Well, funny you mentioned that. ’cause when I published the book originally, I made some, I made some prints, so if you wanna print, we can, we can make, if anybody wants a print, we can make that happen.

Bunny : (33:29)
, it’s so, it’s so cool. We’ll have a picture of the book, um,

John : (33:34)
Yeah. And I’m happy to send you one. Sure.

Bunny : (33:36)
That would be so cool. I’d lo I love that. And I love that it’s from Tucumcari, and you and I talked outside of the podcast about how you’re gonna be in, um, Quay and Harding County, um, next July soon, I mean July 4th through the seventh. Um, spent two nights in Logan, hanging out in Nara Visa. And then going to stay at the Rectory, which is owned by, um, somebody that I know very well at in Mosquero. So if, if folks in Mosquero wanna share some stories, how do they find you?

John : (34:14)
Well, the easiest thing to do is to just go to the Facebook page, um, and just send me a message, um, anybody that’s in, in Roy or knows some interesting history of, you know, Roy Mosquero all those, all those areas, I’d be very interested in hearing anything, mills, mills Canyon…

John : (34:37)
You can email me directly. I can just get, well, my email is very confusing. It’s J-M-H-O-U-S-E because I’ve had this email for 20 years and I thought like, well, who’s going to email me? So everyone thinks the name is Jim House, but it’s just an abbreviation of my, of John Mulhouse. So it’s J-M-H-O-U-S e@cityofdust.com. And you can just email me directly if you’re not on Facebook or you don’t wanna monkey around with that stuff.

Bunny : (35:02)
Okay. And, you know, I mean, I wrote a blog post about this once, but, um, Roy was where, um, Bob Wills got a start as a se, a songwriter. So that’s yet another piece of lore.

John : (35:13)
You know, if I could do a second volume, obviously Roy would be in there. There’s a incredible abandoned, um, convent in Roy that I’ve photographed. And I would love, I got a little, it was built in 1890, I think, and abandoned in 1970, but it is an amazing structure to photograph.

Bunny : (35:33)
I Think I can connect you with some folks in Roy.

John : (35:36)
Oh, that would be great. Yes. I’d appreciate that.

Bunny : (35:38)
Yeah. John, this has been so much fun. I’m sorry that I have to, that we have to cut it short. It’s, although it’s not short, we, we we’re having one of the longest podcasts we’ve had, but there’s so many stories to tell, so, so can we do it again?

John : (35:52)
We could just scratch the surface. Yes, absolutely. By all means, let’s do it again. Yeah.

Bunny : (35:56)
Okay. Well, um, I hope see you when you’re in Quay County or Harding County and, um,

John : (36:02)
Absolutely.

Bunny : (36:03)
Thank you so much for doing this and for writing the book. I love the book.

John : (36:06)
Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that. It, it means, it makes my day, it makes my, it makes my year to hear that kind of stuff, so thank you. I enjoyed it.

Bunny : (36:14)
Alright, thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to the I Love New Mexico podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with your friends on social media or by texting or messaging or emailing them a copy of the podcast. If you have a New Mexico story that you’d like to share with us, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our email address is I love New Mexico blog@gmail.com and we are always, always looking for interesting stories about New Mexico. Subscribe, share, and write a review so that we can continue to bring you these stories about the Land of Enchantment. Thank you so much.