A newspaper reporter’s view of Los Lunas in 1894

Los Lunas in 1894

It’s remarkable how much Los Lunas has changed. Shortly after my family moved to Albuquerque in 1973, we took a Sunday drive south down Old Highway 85 (now N.M. 314) and wound up at the intersection of 85 and Main Street.

There was no traffic and therefore no need for a traffic light. In fact, we parked our car and so my 3-year-old daughter could pick some flowers along the road. I think I saw a car or two drive by. There were certainly no traffic jams.

If Los Lunas was small in 1973, we can only image how tiny it was when a reporter from a newspaper called the Albuquerque Citizen visited the village in early January 1894.

A veteran newspaperman visits Los Lunas

George Washington Pittock was a 47-year-old veteran newspaper reporter when he traveled south from Albuquerque searching for a story to write for the Citizen.

Reporters often took such trips across New Mexico, especially after the Santa Fe Railroad facilitated travel following its construction in 1880.

Pittock arrived in Los Lunas, noting that the area was well-known for its excellent hunting grounds and lakes where “feathered” targets “abound.”

Pittock explained to his readers that although “luna” means moon in Spanish, the village was named after a founding family rather than a celestial body. The name is Los Lunas because it is named after a family. It would have been Las Lunas if it were named after moons.

The reporter wrote that the “elder Mrs. Luna,” Antonio Jose Luna’s wealthy widow, Isabella Luna, lived in an “attractive one-story adobe” across from the railroad depot. The widow’s son, Solomon, lived in the village’s “only modern dwelling,” a two-story home just northwest of the depot.

According to Pittock, Solomon’s mansion, “must have cost fully $6,000, perhaps more.”

The Catholic church stood “a few steps” from the depot. The cemetery beside the church was where “many prominent people” lay buried. Some of the monuments in the cemetery “cost fully $1,000.”

Residents, businesses, amusements and the law

Pittock reported that Los Lunas “contains some 300 souls, of which scarcely two dozen are English speaking.” Three saloons — or one for every 100 residents — provided billiards and cards for “amusement” as well as liquor for their “thirsty” customers.

Pittock found several businesses. Simon Neustadt and Leon Hertzog managed the Los Lunas Mercantile store. Louis Huning, the store’s previous owner, spent his time making wine and brandies and raising alfalfa. Dr. Harrington, a local physician, had just moved to Socorro.

In other news, Pittock wrote that “the substantially constructed bridge across the Rio Grande” had been “lacking for some time in fulfilling its duty as a bridge.” Travelers were forced to ford the river “for a distance.”

The railroad had made a significant impact on the village, importing goods for sale at the mercantile store and exporting wine, brandies and other agricultural products to markets near and far.

The railroad also improved transportation for the village’s small middle and upper classes. Pittock wrote that some residents commuted by train to Albuquerque for employment.

Louis Huning had just departed for a trip to Albuquerque. Sheriff Solomon Luna had left for Socorro to attend a court hearing relating to the murder of Jose Romero, a mail carrier.

Pittock learned of other serious crimes committed in or near Los Lunas. Seventeen-year-old Adelita Jaramillo had been “brutally murdered” while waiting for a northbound train in the Los Lunas depot in 1891. Although identified, the assassin managed to escape justice. Adelita was among the many buried at the local cemetery.

Pittock walked under the same cottonwood trees where three prisoners had been lynched the previous May. Seizing the accused from the local jail, a mob of vigilantes had summarily executed the young men for murdering two women, including Maria Mireles, a 60-year-old dwarf, who had died of a broken neck. The bodies of the accused hung from the “hanging tree” for hours.

End of a visit

Pittock ended his short visit to Los Lunas and returned to Albuquerque to write his newspaper column, which appeared in the Albuquerque Citizen on Jan. 13, 1894.

Like many reporters, Pittock went on to work for other newspapers and magazines, including several in Arizona and Oregon.

Like many reporters, Pittock never made a fortune plying his craft. As he did in Los Lunas, he often supplemented his income by selling subscriptions to whatever newspaper he was working for as he traveled gathering news.

But Pittock’s luck suddenly changed in 1919 when his older brother, Henry L. Pittock, the owner of a major newspaper in Oregon, died, leaving him $5 million. Pittock got to enjoy his newfound wealth for only six years, dying in Los Angeles at the age of 78 in 1925.

And what of Los Lunas today?

Visiting Los Lunas today, it is hard to believe it is the same community that I visited in 1973, no less the place George Pittock visited and wrote about in 1894.

Many things have vanished, been radically altered or moved. Simon Neustadt’s mercantile store has been replaced by several big box stores. The railroad depot has been moved to Daniel Fernandez Memorial Park and replaced by the Los Lunas Transportation Center.

The old bridge has been replaced several times, including its most recent incarnation named after Daniel Fernandez, the village’s Medal of Honor recipient.

The saloons are gone, replaced by healthier establishments like parks and fitness centers. Only a central marker remains at the old cemetery. The old Catholic church is gone, replaced by a new one on Luna Avenue.

Fortunately, the hanging tree was cut down when Main Street was widened at least 60 years ago. Unfortunately, we now have many traffic jams and at least a dozen traffic lights on Main Street alone.

Most dramatically, the village’s population has skyrocketed from 300 “souls” in 1894 to 17,242 residents, according to the census of 2020.

Today’s residents would not have recognized Los Lunas of 1894 any more than residents of the late 19th century would recognize their hometown as it is now.

George Washington Pittock probably never thought that he was performing a valuable service to help link the past to the present when he went looking for a good feature story and some newspaper subscriptions to sell on a winter day 131 years ago.

(La Historia del Rio Abajo is a regular column about Valencia County history written by members of the Valencia County Historical Society since 1998.

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.)