Local Events

Events & Accommodations

The SHAFFER HOTEL is newly remodeled and open for business. For reservations and information, call 505-847-2888. You may also visit them on the World Wide Web at: www.ShafferHotel.com

The dining room is available to guests and walk-in customers alike.

Tillie's Inn, on U.S.Highway 60, east side of Mountainair. Banquet, motel & RV facilities available. (505) 847-0248

History & Landmarks Train Depot

Mountainair, less than 10 miles from the geographic center of New Mexico , was incorporated in 1902 by three men from Kansas.
At an altitude of 6,495, it was a drop-off place for the AT& SF Railway's helper locomotives required to climb the grade to the summit . With the railroad came homesteaders who, as with the Indians and Spaniards already there, began to grow beans & corn. It became known as the "Pinto Bean Capital of the World", until drouths in the 50's and 60's when ranchers took over much of the land for raising livestock. Although ranching is still a main business activity, several galleries have moved into some of the older buildings and help present the growing number of artists and craftpersons with a venue for their work.

Outstanding expressions of Folk Art, "Pop" Shaffer's Hotel and Rancho Bonito are both on the National Register of Historic Places. After fire destroyed his blacksmith shop, "Pop" Shaffer was persuaded to rebuild as an Hotel. The stained glass windows, ornately painted ceiling panels, stone and brick fireplaces and stone garden fence decorated with fantasy creatures, are a few of the examples of this man's lifetime of creative expression.

PUEBLOS OF THE SALINAS VALLEY - Two ancient southwestern cultural traditions, the Anasazi and the Mogollon, overlapped in the Salinas Valley to produce the later societies at Abo, Gran Quivira and Quarai. These traditions had roots as far back as 7,000 years ago and were themselves preceded by nomadic Indians who arrived perhaps as many as 20,000 years ago. By the 10th century, substantial Mogollon villages flourished here. They practiced minimal agriculture supplemented by hunting and gathering, made simple red or brown pottery and lived in pit houses and, later, above ground. By the late 1100s the Anasazi tradition from the Colorado Plateau, introduced through the Cibola (Zini) district and Rio Grande pueblos, began to assimilate the Mogollon. Over the next few hundred years the Salinas Valley becama a major trade center and one of the most populous parts of the Pueblo world, with perhaps 10,000 or more inhabitants in the 17th century. Located astride major trade routes, the villagers were both producers and middlemen between the Rio Grande villages and the plains tribes to the east. They traded maize, pinon nuts, beans, squash, salt and cotton goods for dried buffalo meat, hides, flints and shells.
The Salinas pueblo dwellers were an adaptable people who drew what was useful from more advanced groups. But strong influences from the Zuni district, the Spanish explorers and deteriorating relations with the Apaches to the east radically altered pueblo life. In the 1670s the Salinas vallages were abandoned and their peoples dispersed.

Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument is open daily except December 25. The visitor center is in Mountainair, NM, one block west of U.S.60 and N.M.55 junction. Accomodations and services are available in town. For information write the Superintendent, Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, P.O.Box 517, Mountainair, NM 87036. Tel. (505) 847-2585

Abo Ruins are 9 miles west of Mountainair on U.S.60 and one half mile north. Sophisticated church architecture and a large unexcavated pueblo. Tel. (505) 847-2400

Gran Quivira Ruins are 25 miles south of Mountainair on N.M.55. Two church museum exhibits and a 40 minute video can be seen.
Tel. (505) 847-2770

Quarai Ruins are 8 miles north of Mountainair on N.M.55 and l mile west. It has the most complete Salinas church. Artifacts on display.
Tel (505) 847-2290

Take a virtual tour with the Mountainair Chamber of Commerce