The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-03-25
architecture OF
The OIden Days
1t Is Again Coming Into Style in the
Fashionable West.
ADOBE BUILDING IN FAVOR
Bricks Made of Mud and Straw by Secret
Process of Mexicans Becoming Popu.
lar in the West-Advantagcs
of the Material.


Colorado Springs, Col, March 24.-The
adobe house Is becoming fashionable in
Colorado. This is an architectural fad
OF unusual suggestiveness and interest.
Mysterious, indeed, are the tricks of
fashion. Who could have foreseen that
even here in Colorado. where the rare
fled air stimulates the imagination to
strange tricks and fancies, the immem-
0rlal mud house, bequeathed to us
through the Pueblos and MeXicans by
the prehistoric races of the canons,
would be taken up to afford an outlet
for the esthetlc craving for novelty and
individuality that besets every Amer
lean house builder? Yet so 1t Is, and
who knows but that II the abode rage
spreads 1t may ultimately rest with
Colorado to claim the honor Of having
originated true national school OF
architecture?
Everybody who has ever seen pic
ture of cliff dwellers' town or of
Pueblo village knows what an adobe
house is. The adobe brick is made OF a
peculiar sticky mud and is always sun
generally about inches deep, inches
wide and l6 inches in length, while the
outer walls of the adobe building proper
vary from two to four feet in thick
ness. one old mission in New Mexico
boasts an outer wall six feet In thick
ness.
CuriOusly enough, writes corre-
spondent of the Chicago Herald, the
exact receipt for mixing this adobe
mud Is held as a secret by the MeXi-
cans and half-brceds.' Not even have
they disclosed the necessary amount of
hay or straw to make up perfect
adobe brick. Mayhap the Egyptian
told Il to the Aztec and this wonderful
race to the ancestors of the present
The building Of an adobe house must
necessarily be confined to the months
between May and August at least in
Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, for
frost is death to the unbaked brick.
The adobe is prepared in the old-fash-
ioned way--that Of treading-and when
the mud is worked to proper consist
ency by the nervous feet of the MeNl-
can it is placed in molds of the re-
uuired size. The mortar Is also OF mud,
but dries quickly, and is as solid as
modern cement.
Missions Built of Adobe.
All of the old California missions are
built of adobe, and also the famous
one of San Miguel, in Sante Fe, which
is generally supposed to be the Oldest
building in the United States. All
through New Mexico these adobe build
ings are the only habitations known.
Just why the craze should have been
caught and matured in that individual
lied settlement, sarcastically but apty
termed by Governor Davis Waite Lit
tie London" but known to the outside
unpre ejudiced world as Colorado
Springs, is a mystery. But here the
craze did come, and is now in full sway
to the tune of a score of mud
houses" planned and under construc-
ton. Fashion may be smiling in her
sleeve, but her right bower style
has issued a proclamation.
Advantages of Adobe.
The greatest argument used in favor
of adobe houses is that in summer moth
ing is cooler and in winter nothing is
warmer. 1t is rather clinching argu-
ment, and undoubtedly true.
In Santa Fe almost all of the dwell
ings are made of adobe, except the
quarters where the United States
troops are stationed. The old Span
ish governors palace, where General
Lew Wallace wrote Ben Hur," and in
which he lived while territorial COVER
nor, is single story adobe of the most
pronounced type. All the rear rooms
open out into court, in which grow
vines and trees, and around the outer
border of this court is a wide promen-
ade. Another old adobe In Santa Fe is
Jake Colds shop. which corners on the
remarkable Burro alley. This place is
almost as old as the governors palace.
But this is disgresson. Yet it Illus
trates the remarkable age of these
buildings built of bricks with straw
Perhaps some enterprising easterner
may anticipate the craze and find in
Lancaster county or in that pictur-
esque section of Philadelphia long ago
known as "The Neck" an adaptable
clay. Then n syndicate could easily be
formed, which would pay liberal sum
for the secret to successfully mix 1t.
and then the east would have, after
these long years, Spanish missions and
adobe houses both up to- and yet far
ont of date.