When Mexico ceded New Mexico to the United
States in 1846, the Santa Fe Trail linked the
United States with its new territory. The
government built a string of forts to protect
the trail, including Fort Union in 1851 in
northeastern New Mexico.
Traffic on the trail increased. An indication
of volume is the record in 1858 of 1,827 wagons
carrying $3.5 million in goods – including
housewares, drugs, groceries, whiskey, hardware
and ammunition. In time freight included
furniture, musical instruments and heavy
machinery.
Beginning in 1849 with the first stage line,
the trail also hauled passengers, bumping along
in stagecoaches. Fare from Kansas City to Santa
Fe cost about $200 and included 40 pounds of
baggage and two blankets. The trip took two,
bone-jarring weeks.
Albuquerque
got its first ferry boat in 1856, when the
military commander recognized the need. For more
than 20 years the ferry, near the present
Barelas Bridge,
hauled people, livestock, stagecoaches and
freight wagons. Previously people had waded
across when the water was low or used log canoes
or skiffs.
When the railroad chugged into Albuquerque in
1880, El Camino and the Santa Fe Trail became
obsolete.
The railroad didn’t exactly run through
Albuquerque. Tracks were laid east of town to
accommodate north-south track alignment and to
avoid washouts when the Rio Grande flooded. On
April 10, 1880, the tracks gained Albuquerque
and on the 15th a freight train pulled in,
without fanfare. On April 22nd a trainload of
dignitaries arrived from Santa Fe, which
occasioned parades, music by the Ninth Cavalry
Band, speeches and fireworks.
The railroad spawned a second town, as stores
and saloons sprouted along the tracks in tents
and quickly built shacks. In time the new
commercial district gained permanent structures
of brick and brownstone. It was known as New
Town, and the original community became Old
Town.
For some time the depot was a boxcar set on
pilings. Construction began on the depot and
railroad complex in 1901. By then work had
started on the Alvarado Hotel. Completed in 1902
at a cost of $200,000, it was considered the
finest railroad hotel of its time.
The railroad brought goods in quantity that
freighters had previously hauled on wagons and
mule trains. It also brought newcomers. Before
the railroad, Albuquerque’s population was
largely Hispanic with a sprinkling of Anglos. By
1885, the town counted more than 20 ethnic
groups, including African-Americans, Chinese and
Italians who were building the line.
With accessible transportation, the town’s
economy changed dramatically. Albuquerque became
a shipping point for livestock and wool, and the
lumber industry boomed. In the early 1900s,
American Lumber Co. was second only to the
railroad as Albuquerque’s largest employer. Its
110-acre complex was built between 1903 and 1905
near Twelfth Street. That’s how the Sawmill
Neighborhood got its name. At its peak it
employed 850 men and produced milled lumber,
doors and shingles.
Because Old Town had housing and New Town had
jobs, a trolley system linked the two. The
Street Railway Co. began running mule-drawn
trolley cars along Railroad Avenue (Central)
from the train station to Old Town. In 1904
Albuquerque got its first electric street cars,
which operated until Dec. 31, 1927. The next
morning they were replaced by a fleet of five
buses with eight miles of routes.
In 1891, when Albuquerque incorporated as a
city, it had 5 miles of graded streets and 9
miles of sidewalks. It wouldn’t be long until
the first automobiles were driving over city
streets. In November 1897 R. L. Dodson bought a
“Locomobile” in Denver and drove it to
Albuquerque. It was the first car in the city.
In 1900 Louis Galles, who had come to New
Mexico as a soldier in the Indian wars, bought
another automobile. In 1908 he started the
city’s first car dealership, Galles Motor Co. As
cars began to proliferate, the municipal council
that year set Albuquerque’s first speed limit
for automobiles of 8 miles an hour.
In 1910
Fourth Street became part of New Mexico Route 1.
