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(La Historia del Rio Abajo is a regular column about Valencia County history written by members of the Valencia County Historical Society.
This month's article is based on information gathered from contemporary newspaper articles, interviews with many former residents of San Marcial and a narrative written by Juliana Serna. Juliana's daughter, Maria Vega, and niece, Stella Craig, were especially helpful. Dr. K.R. Brower provided photos from the Socorro Historical Society's valuable photos collection.
This month's author is a professor of History at the University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus, vice president of the Valencia County Historical Society and past president of the Historical Society of New Mexico. His newest book, "Fred Harvey Houses of the Southwest," is available for sale at the Harvey House Museum in Belen. 
Opinions expressed in this and all columns of La Historia del Rio Abajo are the author's alone and not necessarily those of the Valencia County Historical Society or any other group or individual.)
Towns of the Rio Abajo have suffered many devastating floods. Floods in the Rio Grande Valley have wreaked havoc with property and lives in 1769, 1828, 1884, 1904, 1929, 1937, 1969 and, most recently, on August 1, 2006.
But no community suffered more than the small town of San Marcial, located about 30 miles south of Socorro.
San Marcial had been a thriving railroad town since the 1880s when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad designated it as a major division point on the Santa Fe's north-south train route through New Mexico.
By the 1920s, San Marcial boasted a bank, a mercantile store, a drug store, an opera house, several churches, public schools and even a Harvey House. Only Socorro surpassed San Marcial in population and prosperity in Socorro County. San Marcial's 1,500 men, women and children were justifiably proud of their close-knit community where work was plentiful and nearly everyone got along.
But the bright skies over San Marcial suddenly darkened in August 1929. Unusually heavy rain caused the Rio Grande to rise so high and so quickly that the reservoir at Elephant Butte (built in 1916) could not handle the overflow. Despite heroic efforts, San Marcial's dike broke on Aug. 13.
Within hours, the town was under as much as 6 feet of water. Many buildings, including a Protestant church, the opera house and several adobe homes, were destroyed. Fortunately, no lives were lost.
Outside assistance soon arrived, and townspeople helped one another in every way possible. One family went so far as to move into a tent so that three families, left homeless in the flood, could move into their large, mostly undamaged home.
As floodwaters began to recede, businesses began to reopen. Families began to rebuild. Residents returned to work. Like a boxer who had been hit hard but tried to regain his balance, the citizens of San Marcial seemed determined to recover from the calamity of Aug. 13.
And so Juliana "Judy" Serna returned to her job at the Harvey House by San Marcial's train tracks and depot. The 21-year-old San Marcial native truly enjoyed serving passengers and railroad workers at the Harvey House's large lunch counter. She and her friend Josephine Jojola made good money at the restaurant, especially with generous tips left by satisfied customers.
Travelers on the Santa Fe Railway knew that they could expect fresh food, efficient service and reasonable prices at any Harvey House they visited. Built by the railroad and managed by the Fred Harvey Company, Harvey Houses could feed a trainload of passengers in 30 minutes without anyone feeling pressured or rushed.
San Marcial's Harvey House was one of 26 such establishments in the Southwest, including five on the Santa Fe Railway line between Albuquerque and Deming. Some houses, like the one in Belen, were for dining only. Others, like the one in San Marcial, offered upstairs hotel accommodations as well.
Harvey Houses were probably best known for their attractive young waitresses, known as the Harvey Girls. Famous for their high standards, polite manners and spotless uniforms, Harvey Girls worked long hours under normal conditions. They seldom stopped to rest during emergencies.
Judy Serna, Josephine Jojola and the rest of the Harvey House staff in San Marcial worked side-by-side in a well-run operation supervised by a house manager, respectfully known as Mr. Coverdale.
Judy and Josephine could not have expected a normal work shift when they arrived at the San Marcial Harvey House on Tuesday, Sept. 24. Some five weeks after San Marcial's first inundation, a second flood had struck and water had begun to enter the Harvey House's ground floor.
Mr. Coverdale ordered everyone to carry as much as they could up the stairs to the building's second floor. As the water rose, Judy and her fellow workers hauled everything possible, especially perishable foods.
When the water rose as high as their chests, the crew realized that it was time to abandon their sinking ship. Mr. Coverdale, and other men, helped Judy, Josephine and several Harvey Girls wade through the rising water to a waiting train.
But just as the castaways got to the train, someone yelled, "You might as well go back. The bridge is washed out!" It was too late to flee from San Marcial by train.
Judy and her fellow employees waded back to the Harvey House and climbed its stairs to the still-dry second floor. As evening approached, they realized that they would be forced to stay the night, if not longer, until help arrived.
Taking charge, Mr. Coverdale reassured his staff that everything was under control and that they were safe. Years later, Judy recalled her manager's unruffled demeanor.
"I'm going to take all of you out one way or another," he told them. "Don't worry. Everything is going to be O.K."
With faith in their manager and the optimism of youth, Judy and Josephine made the best of their dire circumstances. Sharing a hotel room, drinking free Cokes and eating some of the food they had earlier helped carry upstairs, the friends began to forget their predicament and enjoy their adventure.
Someone played music on a portable phonograph. The girls talked and even laughed through much of the night.
But the sounds outside could not be completely ignored, especially when Judy and Josephine tried to sleep. Water cascaded down the street. One building after another caved in. It seemed like only the Harvey House stood firm.
At dawn, the Harvey House staff awoke and some, including Judy, crawled out a second-floor window onto the roof to survey the damage to their surroundings. They gazed in amazement. All Judy could see was water. Startled, she sat down next to a window and simply stared.
As reassuring as ever, Mr. Coverdale told his staff, "A boat will come for us now that there is light. No need to worry. I will make sure that each of you will get out safely."
True to the manager's promise, a large motor boat from Elephant Butte arrived to rescue those stranded on the rooftop. But how to lower people from the roof to the boat several feet below?
The train that had earlier failed to carry them to safety now played a key role. A long ladder was extended from the roof to the train, and each person slowly crawled across the makeshift bridge above the rushing water. Once at the train, the Harvey House workers climbed down into the waiting boat.
It was noon before everyone was safely aboard and traveling by boat through the flooded town. The scene was even more distressing than what they had seen from the Harvey House's roof. Calm as ever and eager to distract his workers, Mr. Coverdale promised a big lunch once they landed on "shore."
The boat and its passengers finally reached higher ground, where an anxious crowd awaited them. Judy spotted her brother, Felesino, standing knee-deep in water, eager to assist her and other flood victims. Carrying Judy on his shoulders, Felesino delivered his sister to dry land at last.
In another version of this story, a young cowboy (Judy's cousin) rescued Judy and her fellow refugees by riding his horse, Chapo, through the water to the hotel. The cowhand made many trips, each time carrying another grateful person to safety.
Once on dry land, Judy's brother Felesino urged her to hurry home to let her worried family know that she was safe. Their distraught mother had reportedly cried all night.
Judy ran to her home, located on high ground west of town. Relieved to see her daughter alive, Judy's mother, Aurora, now wept tears of joy.
After a brief reunion, Judy returned to her fellow workers to enjoy the lunch Mr. Coverdale had promised. The resourceful manager had somehow rescued food as well as people as he hurriedly abandoned his submerged restaurant.
The Harvey House staff and their San Marcial neighbors survived the terrible floods of 1929, but their community did not. Realizing that its offices and shops were beyond repair, the Santa Fe Railway abandoned all but its tracks that ran east of town.
Without railroad employment and the income it brought, local residents faced the inevitable and began an exodus that took nearly a year to complete. Some Santa Fe employees took transfers to railroad towns as near as Belen or as far as San Bernardino, Calif. Descendents still live in these and other towns, especially Socorro and Albuquerque.
And the floods destroyed thousands of acres of farmland up and down the valley. An estimated 8,000 farmers and their families joined railroad employees in a larger exodus from San Marcial and the surrounding area.
Judy soon moved to San Acacia, where she met and married Joseph David Garcia. The couple lived in Albuquerque and California before moving to Polvadera to own and operate a service station and bar. They raised three children, Joseph David Leroy, Mauricio Antonio and Maria.
When Joe Garcia died at the age of 46, Judy ran the family businesses on her own before retiring to Albuquerque and, later, to Socorro. She died on January 22, 1993, at the age of 85.
But Judy never lost her affection for San Marcial. She always remembered the friendly community and the fields where she loved to ride horses as a girl.
She remembered the first plane to fly over San Marcial, and how everyone stood outside and marveled at the strange machine in the sky above their town.
Judy also remembered the first time she used a telephone, and how her mother wept at the sight of young American soldiers passing by in trains en route to Europe during World War I.
Judy remembered the horrors of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 when people died so quickly that they had to be buried in mass graves at the local cemetery.
And of course, she remembered the floods of 1929.
Judy's fellow residents of old San Marcial shared these memories and missed their lost town. More than a thousand attended a reunion held in Socorro's Sedillo Park on Saturday, August 26, 1995. Men and women laughed and cried and hugged and reminisced. Many wore specially produced T-shirts that read, "I survived the floods of 1929."
Several former residents have honored their little town in poems and a corrido (ballad), written by Ramón Luna and recorded by Eddie Benevidez. Translated by musicologist John Donald Robb, the corrido's lyrics read:
The [twenty-fourth of September],
I do not wish to remember,
For on that day the Rio Grande
Flooded the town of San Marcial….
The water was pretty high,
Houses were floating around,
And the people went weeping
To the top of the hills.
My poor people,
Oh, what luck befell them!
They all lost their houses,
Only the Harvey House remained….
This month marks the 80th anniversary of the flood that destroyed San Marcial. Songs like Ramón Luna's corrido, and stories like Judy Serna's personal history, help us celebrate — and mourn — this proud little town in the heart of the Rio Abajo.
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