03 Jul Wanderings: New Mexico’s Turquoise Trail
Santa Fe, New Mexico, has long been called “The City Different.” But for really different, take the Turquoise Trail, a National Scenic Byway (54 miles on State Road 14) that starts at the intersection of Interstate 25 south of town and roams southwest to Tijeras. The winding road offers scenic vistas, art, music, food, history, and a whole lot of quirkiness.
Roughly 18 miles from the Santa Fe Plaza is Cerrillos. Native Americans were drawn to the turquoise deposits here as early as 900 A.D., and Spaniards mined the area in the 1500s. In 1880, Cerrillos was founded, with miners bringing in gold, silver, zinc, lead, and turquoise, but that had all played out by the early 1900s.
In the 1970s, artists and free spirits started settling in Cerrillos. That included Todd Brown, owner of Casa Grande Trading Post, Petting Zoo & Cerrillos Turquoise Mining Museum. A New Jersey native who ran away from home when he was 17, Brown found a vein of turquoise while walking through the Cerrillos Hills and promptly filed a mining claim with the Bureau of Land Management. Eventually, he met and married Patricia and the couple taught themselves how to make jewelry: bracelets, earrings, key chains, money clips, pendants, rings.
Todd and Patricia Brown have become fixtures on the Turquoise Trail, running the Casa Grande Trading Post in Cerrillos for decades. It’s a combination antique shop, knickknack store, trading post, jewelry store, and museum — with a petting zoo thrown in.
They also learned how to make adobe bricks — 65,000 of them. That’s what it took to build (with help from family and friends) a 28-room hacienda that includes the six-room trading post and museum.
Cerrillos has long been a popular site for TV and filmmakers (The Nine Lives of Elfega Baca, Young Guns, “Dark Winds”), and while a few businesses have recently shuttered, Brown says artists still live in or near Cerrillos and that the Cerrillos Hills State Park brings in plenty of nature lovers.
Roughly three miles down Highway 14 is Madrid, arguably the Turquoise Trail’s capital. Established in the 1880s, Madrid boomed in the 1920s from coal mining and boasts that it’s home to the first (1922) lighted baseball stadium (now Oscar Huber Memorial Ballpark) west of the Mississippi River. But when the mines shut down, the entire town was put up for sale in 1954 with an asking price of $250,000. There were no takers.
That changed in the late 1960s, when properties were sold piecemeal, mostly to, as The Athletic put it in 2019, “artists and free-spirited hippies.” That 1960s vibe remains today with signs advertising cosmic healing, readings (astrology, intuitive, tarot), and cannabis.
Businesses and homes line both sides of Highway 14, with crowds walking along the road on good-weather weekends. Yes, parking places can be hard to find.
From a sun-carved gate and the prickly pear blooms in Cerrillos, to the zaniness of eclectic art and artists in Madrid, the Turquoise Trail isn’t any run-of-the-mill road trip.
“Madrid is a great place,” says Haley Lampley, who works at Gifted Hands Gallery, which carries art by locals and Native artists, primarily Kewa (aka Santo Domingo Pueblo). “You’ll meet people from all walks of life just living right here, coexisting.” The gathering spot for tourists and locals is the Mine Shaft Tavern & Cantina, which opened in 1947 and offers food, beverages, conversation and, often, live music.
About 11 miles down the road is Golden, a gold-rush town founded in the late 1870s and home to the picturesque San Francisco de Asis Catholic Church and historic Henderson Store, the latter started by Ernest and Lucy Riccon as the Golden General Store in 1918. Still in the family, the store continues to showcase Native jewelry, rugs, and pottery.
Antique vehicles offer photo ops, while the The Gifted Hand specializes in works by locals and Native artists, primarily Kewa (aka Santo Domingo Pueblo).
The Turquoise Trail’s quirkiest stop has to be the Tinkertown Museum, a short drive on state Highway 536 east of Sandia Park. This 22-room museum houses wooden dioramas that were hand-carved over the course of 40 years by artist/carnival painter/sculptor/tinkerer Russ J. Ward, who also put together the meandering walls made of bottles and cement. Ward, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1998, died in 2002 at age 57. Open since 1983, the museum became a nonprofit this year. It’s a place you have to see to believe.
Madrid’s Trading Bird Gallery specializes in local turquoise.
Looking from the Santa Fe Plaza at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.
“All the places along the Turquoise Trail are just really cool and unique,” Gifted Hands Gallery owner Kelsey Thompson says, “and, to me, [they each] embody that rule of what the actuality of the American Dream is supposed to be.” After all, the American Dream should be quirky, fun, and one of a kind.
Hero’s Horse at Kevin Box Studio’s metal origami sculpture garden near Cerrillos.
Golden’s San Francisco de Asis Catholic Church was established in the 1830s and restored in the 1960s.
Johnny D. Boggs (JohnnyDBoggs.com) is an award-winning novelist and freelance journalist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, photographer Daniel Nadelbach’s clients include Smithsonian, Whole Foods, Vogue Australia, Auberge Resorts, and Head Sportswear, among many others.
Sidebar:
If you go…
Museums, Attractions
Casa Grande Trading Post, Petting Zoo & Cerrillos Turquoise Mining
505.438.3008; casagrandetradingpost.com
Cerrillos Hills State Park, Cerrillos
505.474.0196; cerrilloshills.org
Turquoise Hills Riding Company, Cerrillos
505.570.7991; Turquoisehillsriding.com
Tinkertown Museum, Sandia Park
505.281.5233; tinkertown.com
Dining
Black Bird Saloon, Cerrillos
505.438.1821; blackbirdsaloon.com
The Mine Shaft Tavern & Cantina, Madrid
505.473.0743; themineshafttavern.com
Roots Farm Cafe, Tijeras
505.900.4118; rootsfarmcafe@gmail.com
Art, Shopping
Jezebel Studio and Gallery, and Soda Fountain, Madrid
866.539.3235; jezebelgallery.com
Gifted Hands Gallery, Madrid
Henderson Store, Golden
505.281.7136; hendersonstore.com
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