Episode 104 – You can also listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcasts, and Amazon Music
About the Episode
In this episode of the “I Love New Mexico” podcast, host Bunny Terry converses with Kevin McDevitt, an author and researcher passionate about Cimarron, New Mexico, and the historic Saint James Hotel. Kevin shares his journey of discovering Cimarron’s lawless Old West past, highlighting the town’s unique connection to the Santa Fe Trail and its colorful characters. The discussion covers the town’s tumultuous history, including the influence of land baron Lucien Maxwell and the notorious Santa Fe Ring. Bunny and Kevin also delve into the fascinating story of Henry Lambert, the founder of the Saint James Hotel. (Part 1 of 2)
Links
St. Jame Hotel
Kevin on PBS
Kevin’s Book: History of the St. James Hotel
Haunted Highways by Ralph Looney
I Love New Mexico blog page
Bunny’s website
I Love New Mexico Instagram
I Love New Mexico Facebook
Original Music by: Kene Terry
Featuring: Kevin McDevitt
A lifelong admirer of all things “old west” and being a former New Mexico lawman himself, it seems only natural to write on the subject. Hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and spending time in Texas and Colorado, Kevin developed a deep love of the Southwest, its people, culture, and history. After receiving a copy of Haunted Highways (by Ralph Looney) from his uncle when he was young man, Kevin spent the next two years traveling all over New Mexico exploring these ghost towns every chance he had. It had a profound effect on his life. After an early retirement, Kevin could finally pursue his passion of writing about the Southwest. “If I could be anywhere it would be in an old library surrounded by old books doing research on a project or out in the field exploring some old town or place.” ~ Kevin
His first book, History of the St. James, Cimarron, New Mexico, is historical nonfiction.
Transcript
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Bunny 00:00:02 Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry and I’m the host of the I Love New Mexico podcast. We talk about everything here. There are no boundaries. We talk to people who are from all corners of the state, people who are chefs, who are tourists, who are artists, who are Chamber of Commerce executives, and who are from ranch families that have been here for hundreds of years. New Mexico is enchanting, and it’s interesting. And I can’t believe I get to do this job. New Mexico is so amazing, and I invite you to come along for the ride on the I Love of New Mexico podcast. Thanks for being here. Our guest today on the I Love New Mexico podcast is somebody who has written about a subject that feels very familiar to me, and yet I feel like I’m just sort of this armchair Admirer of of the Old West and in particular Cimarron, New Mexico. And so it’s a real treat to have Kevin McDevitt here who has written, who has, first of all, very, thoroughly researched and studied Cimarron and in particular, the Saint James Hotel.
Bunny 00:01:22 But, Kevin, first I want to know about you. I read in your bio that you’re from Albuquerque. Is that right? I am.
Kevin 00:01:29 Yeah, well we are. Our family moved there when I was, in my teens, back in the 70s, and I just fell and absolutely fell in love with the culture and the people and the history and the entire state.
Bunny 00:01:42 Well, I feel exactly the same way. And. And you then, were a it did I read that you were in law enforcement?
Kevin 00:01:51 Yeah, I was the police officer down Hobbs, New Mexico for a for a time. Yes. Yeah.
Bunny 00:01:56 Well, so you’ve been all over the state and then, developed this fast. Am I right in saying you sort of developed a fascination with, Cimarron in general, or just sort of the lawlessness of the Wild West?
Kevin 00:02:12 Kind of an interesting story. My, when I was 19, you probably read this. My, uncle gave me this book, Haunted Highways by, Ralph Looney.
Kevin 00:02:23 And it’s, one of the first ghost town books of New Mexico. And in doing so, he, really kind of opened up a can of worms with me. To make a long story short. So I. I got the book, and for the next two years, I, packed up my, my old 69 Mustang and traveled to, I think, every one of these locations and visited it. And it just opened up a absolute love for the state and its history. And I got to meet, you know, most, most ghost ghost towns. You know, a lot of them aren’t really ghost towns. There’s 1 or 2 people still living there. So I got a chance to visit with these folks, and they found it fascinating that somebody of my young age of 19 had any interest in history and in their, their world. And they really, you know, I got invited in for green stew and coffee and warm tortillas, and it was just a wonderful experience over those two years and just really developed, a love for for the state and its history.
Kevin 00:03:24 And it just kind of set me off in a, you know, a direction I never returned from.
Bunny 00:03:31 Well, you said I read in your bio that she said, if you could be anywhere you in the world, you’d like to be in a dusty library, just sitting in the middle of of a pile of books and research. And I absolutely get that. That was, I’m with you on that one. But what? Talk to us about the the Cimarron Simran piece. What led to this book that you wrote that? That is so fascinating.
Kevin 00:04:00 That’s an interesting story too. So I was working in Albuquerque and I worked with a young lady, Jean Berger, and she found out I had a love for for the Old West and in New Mexico. And she said, you need to meet my dad. And I said, well, who’s your dad? She said, he’s had he owns the Saint James Hotel and Cimarron, New Mexico. So, you know, being the lights went off and happy dance occurred and all this stuff.
Kevin 00:04:24 So I said, well, when can we go? You know, so but I think within a few weeks we made our first trip up there and I had a chance to meet with Ed and his wife, Sandy. Just incredible people. And he was kind enough and took me under his wing and just gave me a, you know, a hand to hand, tour of the hotel. And we went and every nook and cranny and trust me, I quizzed him till he was tired of listening to me, quizzed him, you know, but he was very gracious and told me all about the hotel, and it just opened up a can of worms that, you know, I couldn’t close. So we became good friends. And really, the how the book came about was he called me one day and said, Kevin, I’ve heard rumors that Fred Lambert. Now, Fred Lambert is the son of the original owner, Henry Lambert from France. Now, Fred was born in 1887, and he was, ended up being a quite a Mexico law enforcement figure.
Kevin 00:05:20 He was kind of the last real marshal and, and lawman they had in New Mexico from the Old West era. He said, I heard Fred had a diary and that it’s in, possibly the New Mexico and University of New Mexico Library. So he said, would you go look for it? I’m sure that sounds awesome to me. So I made a call down to the library and talked to the librarians in this and said, do you all have anything for me? Fred Lambert from Cimarron, New Mexico. And they go, let’s check. And they came back and said, we’ve got a box, you know? So okay. That’s great. What’s in the box? Because we have no idea. We just have a box. So I was one of the first ones to get a chance to open this box. So the next literally the next day I made an appointment was down there and it was myself and Jean and my and my wife Brandy. And we got to open the box and, and you know, it’s kind of like opening a treasure chest, right? It’s it’s something that you don’t know what’s in there.
Kevin 00:06:14 And it’s, it’s full surprise. And we found a couple of his books, a lot of his drawings, but more than anything, he had a lot of personal papers, no diary, but a lot of personal papers. He had drawings of, him. Hand-drawn drawings of the, killings that happened in the hotel that he had done, and personal notes and, and, excerpts from his father telling stories and all this really cool stuff. So we made copies of as much as we could. And I brought it back to, to, ed up in Cimarron And we sat down, had discussion, and when I left it, it came down to me thinking that, you know, this was all, Fred put all this in this box for a reason, right? He he he kept it, he he protected it. He he he went to all this effort to collect these things and write these things down. I said it would be an absolute shame to let this story die in a box on a shelf in a library.
Kevin 00:07:16 So that’s really was the catalyst for, for me saying, I’m going to write this, this book. And it took four years of research and I been in every library and county office and, you know, interviews and everything else from Washington, D.C., back to back to Cimarron, trying to research this and make it make it valid. You know, one of the issues with it was, I’m sure you’ve been in the Saint James and you’ve read things on the wall, the, you know, the things in the walls. And they’ve got lots of stuff posted. And there’s there’s been numerous articles in newspapers and magazines and books and things of that nature about the Saint James Hotel. But the problem was, none of them were the same. So my my thought process was, I’m going to dig into this and write a the most accurate historical book on the hotel that I can, along with its its founding proprietor. And, you know, in doing so, I might step on some legends and, and other things which which I did.
Kevin 00:08:26 But it’s, the research is pretty, pretty valid. And, you know, I, I think it’s a great, addition to New Mexico history.
Bunny 00:08:35 So we, we really we jumped right into the substance of this, but but I always want to keep in mind that there are a lot of listeners. This may be the first time they’ve ever heard the podcast, or they may be listening to us from Scotland or New Zealand. We do have those listeners. So real quickly. explain to people, first of all, where Cimarron is in the state and how it is we’re talking about a time period. Talk about the time period that we’re talking about when it was first created. And why is it so different from everywhere else in New Mexico? It seems I mean, it really is. Even the name has a connotation of the Wild West, right?
Kevin 00:09:21 It does. You know, Cimarron in Spanish means wild and unruly, and it kind of fits that, that mantra to a certain degree. The civilization is in northern, northern, central New Mexico.
Kevin 00:09:36 It’s about 45 miles, give or take, kind of southwest of Raton, in Raton Pass, which is part of the Santa Fe Trail on the Mountain Branch. So that’s kind of how Cimarron got on the map is it was a stopping point for the for the the Santa Fe Trail. Cimarron started, you know, gosh, I, I’m not sure when it was exactly incorporated, but I’m, you know, back in the 1864, Lucien Maxwell, who was the land baron, almost 2 million acres up in that area, had a swatch of land basically 40 miles by 60 miles. And he set up his rancho from Rialto. He moved it to Cimarron because it was closer to the river and had more access to the canyons and going west and whatnot. And Leslie Maxwell is a very interesting guy. not the greatest businessman in the world. So Cimarron started out as being a part of Wolfe and Maxwell’s land grant, which I guess is part of a 2 million acre vast estate that was gathered by 2 or 3 different languages.
Kevin 00:10:43 Spanish land grants that he acquired through marriage and other other means. so Cimarron is different because it’s it’s really on the edge of the plains. It’s really where you enter the Rockies. So it had vast resources. It had grazing land and had timber. It had, coal, you know, it had. And then you get to the to the 18, late 18, 60s. And there’s a gold rush up on Mount Baldy in the Moreno Valley, you know, which is how Henry came about is his part of that gold rush thing. But that’s kind of how Cimarron entered the Old West, days. Is is that from that? But in doing so, it attracted a lot of people. You know, it was kind of a boomtown and attract a lot of folks, some good, some bad. You know, a lot of folks from the the grazing land there was just unbelievable. So a lot of Texans came up with their cattle herds in and kind of squatted on the land, of the Maxwell land grant.
Kevin 00:11:47 But in 1870, Lucien Maxwell sold his grant to some English and Dutch and European land speculators. And that just caused an absolute quagmire of issues that really, almost reverberate to this day. It took decades and decades for them to clear that whole thing up, but in doing so, it caused a lot of problems.
Bunny 00:12:12 let’s move right on. I mean, talk about the lawlessness piece, because that’s such a fascinating part of what we don’t what I didn’t realize, and I saw this from watching your, PBS interview, which we’re going to provide a link to for everybody. Is that compared to the surrounding states, there was a period of time when New Mexico, lacked real, I mean, for lack of a better term, any kind of law enforcement. So we sort of attracted, the folks who were running from the law elsewhere. Is that am I right?
Kevin 00:12:49 Absolutely correct. Simran, was it really has the almost a better story than than a place like tombstone has? But it’s just but it’s just never really gotten out.
Kevin 00:13:01 The the neat thing about, Simran is it attracted all these. That’s just a cast of characters, from Clay Alison to Poncho Grigio to, you know, the Santa Fe ring had a big part of it. You know, the assassination of Reverend Toby. It was just absolutely flawless, to the point where they had to bring in troops from Fort Union to try and settle this, this down. Because this Sheriff Reinhardt just couldn’t handle it. But it’s, it’s a neat story in, in that, it shows, you know How lack of law can give a town a personality, if that makes any sense. Oh yeah. And in doing so, it filled up the boot hill up on the, you know, up on the bluff with a lot of a lot of characters in there. But there was in the, the hotel itself, the Saint James Hotel, which was established in basically 1871. And as is going to this day, the legend has it that there is 26 people killed in the hotel.
Kevin 00:14:11 we can’t prove that I documented 17 people, which is still a lot, which is still a pretty good number, you know, at that point. But it’s all because of this laws and the laws, and it’s really focused on New Mexico because of the surrounding states. You know, New Mexico was one of the last states to to get statehood. And up in Colorado, you had the Colorado Rangers over in Texas, you had the Texas Rangers. Over in Arizona, you have the Arizona Rangers, and you have the federal authorities down and Mexico and the all chase the bad guys, and they all came to New Mexico. It comes because it was basically lawless and they could do whatever they wanted to, you know. So it wasn’t really until, my gosh, the the early 1900s until the New Mexico Police was created and they started addressing this problem. But until then it it was just open. But I got news for you and the folks who ran New Mexico back in those days. Actually, Governor Axtell, back in the 1870s, he I think he came to office in 1875.
Kevin 00:15:10 He didn’t have a problem with this. It it kind of he he was probably the most corrupt and fraudulent governor in the history of our country.
Bunny 00:15:22 And his name was Axtell.
Kevin 00:15:23 Yes. Actually, yes. Abe Axtell. And he’s the one who basically human. Catron and Elkins led the Santa Fe ring, and they, you know. you got to think about this in in perspective. New Mexico is a territory. And in territories there were no elections. It was colonial rule, basically, if you want to think about it like that, the governor was a was assigned by the president or a military person. in this case, he was signed by Grant and everybody who was assigned to these territories, they all had motives and there was no rules. They created the rules in New Mexico. And one of the problems with New Mexico was so wide open in so new as being a territory of the United States that there was so much money to be made through, you know, land grants in, in get into timber, in the gold and all these things.
Kevin 00:16:32 And everybody wanted a piece of it. And then the other piece is the railroad was coming through New Mexico and that that lay there, and everybody wanted a piece of that. So it created this, this corrupt cabal that, that controlled the state, and they controlled it very tightly. And they made a lot of money doing it. It was, you know, I’ve ever, ever read the book The Cattle Barons. It’s, you know, about these railroad tycoons who they pushed over everybody to make a buck, you know, and this is basically no different. And it’s just, again, it goes back to creating this, this wild and and woolly kind of atmosphere in these, in these certain towns that basically the, the people in, in Cimarron were at war with the people of the Santa Fe ring and who all that this cabal that controlled New Mexico. And it came to a fever pitch when, Reverend Toby got assassinated in Cimarron Canyon in 74. That’s what started it. And the, you know, the Morley’s and the Springers of of, Cimarron created their own newspaper, the Cimarron News and Press, and they started battling back and forth within New Mexico, New Mexican out of Santa Fe.
Kevin 00:17:48 And it just it just got ugly and horrible and, you know, murders were made, assassination plots were had. It was it was just a wild time.
Bunny 00:17:58 So so I don’t remember. So Toby was, had some this had something to do with Clay Allison. Right. I should have I should have all this in my head, but, Clay Allison was anti. Was he anti Maxwell Land grant I can’t remember. He, he.
Kevin 00:18:15 He started out basically kind of supporting the Santa Fe ring and all this corrupt because he thought it would get him. He squatted on the Maxwell Land grant and he thought this would help him get his land and get free land and then assist us. Toby, Reverend Toby was assassinated, and that kind of turned everything around, and he he switched sides, basically, and became a fervent protector of the people of Cimarron. And they’re their values. And they just created a interesting dynamic to the point where, Axtell actually, created a murder plot to murder Allison and Morley and all the the people who represented decency, I guess, in in Cimarron.
Kevin 00:19:11 but that’s how crooked it became. Now, that was spoiled because they found the letter in, Got it. The news of the people who were making the assassination attempt. But he was going to send one of his, his, garrisons from, Fort Union up to, Cimarron to assassinate these folks. You know, it was it was just it was just insane. And you think, how could that go on? You know. But. Right. But the the amount of the framing was so strong, they it was just a series of high level lawyers basically. And, and other folks and they controlled they could just control everything. They manipulated the land grants. They stole land from the original owners. They would falsify, documents and, and arrest people. They would, you know, put people in odd situations and, and force them to recant on things that it was just a horrible time in New Mexico.
Bunny 00:20:14 Well, it was it was sort of like The Sopranos of the 1870s and 1880s in northern New Mexico.
Bunny 00:20:22 Right? I mean, it was sort of like a mafia rule.
Kevin 00:20:25 It really was. And there and there was no oversight, which is the horrible part. The only reason anybody knew about these things is citizens would write to the New York Sun, which was a newspaper in New York, and it kind of was the tell all truth wise, for for the nation. And people would write the editor there and he would publish articles. And that’s kind of how Washington, D.C. found these things out. And once they got embarrassed enough, and that’s what it was, it wasn’t that they were against it. Once they got embarrassed enough, then they would do something. But until then, everybody made a boatload of money.
Bunny 00:21:08 Kevin, there’s. So this feels to me like, this is something this is, like, ripe for a Netflix series because it’s like Yellowstone, but it’s real. It’s it’s, this is not fiction. This is something that people lived through. My husband, was a child in Cimarron and in fact lived over on the I don’t know what that road is where the mill is, but on Old Mill Road over there, not far from the Saint James.
Bunny 00:21:38 And he knew, you know, those people that you’re talking about, the, you know, the Springers and the Morley’s and they he his family had a relationship with all of those people. And he says, we always knew that there was this undercurrent of, people, you know, people who had grown up older peoples. You know, of course, his parents were born in the 20s, but even before that, those old families where, man, they just barely survived those periods of time. It’s it’s just so fascinating to me because at the I think about all the stuff that was happening at the same time elsewhere in this state, you know, in Lincoln County and in, I’m just thinking about all the different things that were going on while Cimarron were, you know, if you walked in the bar at the Saint James, there was a chance you might get shot. And none of it is fiction.
Kevin 00:22:35 No, it’s not, you know, the the Colfax County War, you know, again, started with the assassination of Toby.
Kevin 00:22:41 And that’s what kind of brought this lawlessness to a a t at that point in Cimarron was it was dangerous, you know, I mean, it really was. People rode through the streets and I’m actually doing an article for a Western journal on, David John David Crockett, who was the kind of a great great nephew of the Alamo Crockett. But he was on the opposite of the spectrum. He was not a good guy, and he was one of the ones that shopped the town. And he, you know, they were they would threaten the sheriffs and they were they had no fear of any repercussions with what they were doing. And it just created this, this atmosphere in your husband’s family probably was part of that. You know, if they’d been there for a while.
Bunny 00:23:26 They they came. I mean, his dad was a game warden and and came I mean, they didn’t he didn’t grow up. I mean, his family was not from Cimarron. They just moved. There was a child, but he just people feel like this is almost folkloric.
Bunny 00:23:41 And it’s not. It’s how people lived it.
Kevin 00:23:45 It really is. Which makes it fascinating. I mean, in, in, in really on, on par in, in rival with again, the tombstones and the Dodge cities in those days. It just hasn’t got the publicity, you know, that it has.
Bunny 00:24:02 And and so, so I just want to warm it warn everybody while we’re listening. It appears to me that Kevin and I need to do another episode, because we haven’t even gotten really to the Saint James or to the Lambert’s. And so, but but this is how. this is how history in New Mexico is in, especially in that in the Cimarron area, there are so many layers and there are so many players. And I will say, just to whet people’s appetites and I hope that’s okay. Kevin, if we can do this again, if you go to the Saint James today, you can book a room and you can stay there and you can go and have a drink.
Bunny 00:24:44 And there are bullet holes in the bar right in the ceiling and the walls.
Kevin 00:24:50 It is it’s literally like stepping back 150 years in time. You know, obviously there are modern things there, but the essence of the hotel is basically the same as it was 150 years ago. And in my opinion, the Saint James is a gift, you know, to New Mexico. It’s a jewel and it should be enjoyed by all you know, you can stay in the old part of the hotel. I think they have 12 rooms there that are that you can,
Bunny 00:25:14 If you don’t mind the ghost.
Kevin 00:25:17 That’s my.
Bunny 00:25:17 Next book. Yeah.
Bunny 00:25:20 I know, I know, I, And and I have, I have not stayed in the old part because it does seem that, that’s that ghosts love to come and visit. However, what I want to hear from you is real quickly, just so we can whet people’s appetites and do this again in a couple of weeks. Why? Why Henry Lambert? Why the Saint James? What? What? I mean, first of all, I think it’s a really cool story that you found this box of stuff.
Bunny 00:25:55 But why did he end up there? And what was the what? What was the I mean, when did it begin? When did the Saint James begin? You know.
Kevin 00:26:05 It’s a series of. I don’t know how to put the series of just incredible events that happened. You know, they created a little boy from France to come over, you know, across the pond, you know, and get involved in America and eventually go to Cimarron for a, gold rush. And he ends up buying a he he learns really quick that digging gold is hard, you know?
Bunny 00:26:40 Right.
Kevin 00:26:40 Right.
Bunny 00:26:41 There’s other wise guys who make the money. Are the ones with the shovel selling the shovel. Yeah.
Kevin 00:26:46 So he finds another way to mine the miners, you know. So he buys a hotel there, a little log cabin hotel. Makes a boatload of money on that in Elizabethtown, and then eventually realizes that Cimarron, the new county seat at that time, has so much potential. So he moves there, makes a deal with Maxwell to get his little his little, building that starts the, Lambert Saloon and Inn.
Kevin 00:27:11 And it just kind of grows from there into what it is today. But but it really needs story. We need to go in depth on that. You’re right.
Bunny 00:27:17 I want to do that. I want to do that. I feel like we just barely scratched the surface and we didn’t tell anybody. Well, you did. You said Boot Hill, I, I will tell you, one of my favorite places in Cimarron is the is the cemetery. I feel like if you want to get to know any place you’re visiting, just go to the cemetery. And that is definitely one of my favorites. But can can we do this again? Kevin, I want to I want to talk to. Oh, yay. Perfect. Nice. Well, so I’m just this almost feels unfinished, except that you’ve given everybody a really interesting look at sort of the why of why Cimarron ended up being, so scary at the moment and so fascinating to us now.
Kevin 00:28:07 It was it was a neat place. I love to talk more about it.
Bunny 00:28:11 Great.
Bunny 00:28:12 Thank you so much for giving me this time. I can’t wait to do it again.
Kevin 00:28:16 Sounds great.
Bunny 00:28:18 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 at 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.