The Streets of Santa Fe: A Walking Tour from 1880 to the Present

What if you could step into a time machine, zip back to Santa Fe in the post-World War II era, and walk the streets of downtown and along Canyon Road? This walking tour takes you backward in time and shows you what was there before… on the streets of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Block by block, it preserves the memories of the local landmarks, buildings, shops, and schools that everyone knew. You'll see the Plaza lined with shops where locals bought their pajamas and gasoline, milkshakes and haircuts. You'll see Canyon Road when it was a winding dirt road with family farms and neighborhood grocers. You'll see children ice skating on the frozen Santa Fe River in January and artist Will Shuster, inventor of Zozobra, sketching at George King's Bar on Galisteo Street. Prior to the mid-1970s, Santa Fe was a town of bohemians and shopkeepers. There were artists but no galleries. For three decades after World War II, no one thought it quaint to shop downtown, and until 1960 there were no street signs. By the early 1980s, however, the chain store invasion had begun and downtown had become a tourist mecca. Today, the memories of Santa Fe's oldest residents reach back no earlier than the 1950s, and soon those memories will be gone. This book seeks to preserve their colorful and classic recollections.