An Incredible year in Santa Fe History
As a tour guide in Santa Fe, I have been a seeker of as much history as I can digest. As I learned more and more about the “City Different,” I gained the impression that there was a year in the city’s history that always showed up in history books but had not been treated as a story on its own. It was the year 1880. It was the year of the railroad arrival and with it, hordes of new people were on the move, coming and going on this new, more convenient way to travel.
My first inclination was to seek information from the town’s newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican, which is still published today. That inclination gave me an organized way to tell Santa Fe’s story in an organized way. As I began reading the old newspaper issues, some very difficult to decipher, I began to wonder how I could find a main character to carry the story through the year.
I soon discovered that some of the most colorful characters in Santa Fe history were active in the year 1880. Billy the Kid was a big part of the news. Governor Lew Wallace, one of New Mexico’s most famous governors, was trying to tame the wild west. Adolph Bandelier arrived to begin some of the most exhaustive studies of Native American life to date. Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy was trying to overcome one of the greatest struggles of his life to save the life of a close relative. Then there was a young Sister of Charity in charge of Santa Fe’s first hospital who was left to take charge of the sick and dying. She was Rosa Maria Segale.
As I read through her journal, I knew she had to be the main character in the book. She was already in action running the hospital when the year 1880 began and she figured large in the history of that year with incredible experiences with the poorest and the mightiest figures of the year.
About the author
As one of the most requested tour guides by hotels in Santa Fe, Allen likes to share the city’s rich history in the form of stories. He is known for his ability to combine all the stories he knows into a rich mosaic of one of the country’s most historic cities. His love of history has resulted in Santa Fe’s two most recent books about the history of “The City Different.” He calls Santa Fe the Southwest’s Capital for history, culture, art and cuisine and he shares colorful summaries of all these subjects on his tours.