Albuquerque daily citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1895-1903, 1903-05-16

The first two story frame business
house was being erected on the north
Second street for George Lail. II was
nearly completed on March 81 and was
a handsome structure. A few minutes
after 6 o'clock that evening a zephyr-
Kansas would call it a cyclone-struck
it and in a moment it was razed. The
wind lasted but a couple of minutes.
| but destroyed a 10000 improvement
solely. At an earlier date we had a
less destructive but a very strong mo-
mentary blow from the same direction.
1t came out of the west, On the morn
ing of December 4, 1880. the adobe
roof. large rafters and all. was lifted
| from the adobe store room. 25x1OO, oc-
cupied by Berry Bros, on the north
east corner of Railroad avenue and
Second street, was carried over Jaffa
Bros store adjoining. over four vacant
lots and lodged partially upon the root
of the Boss saloon. We had a few 9TH
er little blows, but these two were pc
culiar.
We needed no wind, however. to in
crease the life of the town. As com.
| pared with the present we are not in
it. The last week of December, 1880.
our merchants received forty-ive cars
of freight and the freight bills paid
that month by them was SOS 900. From
the arrival of the railroad in April,
1880, to January 1, 1881. we paid the
railroad for freight alone S457,014.69
and in the following two months S172.-
1922 and the following four months
$3.50. 900. Passenger and express re-
ceipts would greatly swell these fig
ures. Rates were somewhat steep. Up
OF a shipment of trees in April. 1881.
from Sedalia, Mo-. invoiced at $40, we
| paid the railroad 1880 freight.
Money was easy Both the living
and the dead had it, as illustrated by
September Is, 1881, a man was killed
by a train a few miles below town, his
body and effects picked up and brought
in, that an inquest might be held.
Inere was no Identification, and a
question arose as to what disposition
should be made of his effects-a gun
and $50 cash. Myers says that Justice
Sullivan easily disposed of that ques-
ton upon finding THAT the deceased
at the time of his death was carrying
a gun "I1l fine him $50 and costs for
carrying the deadly weapon" AS a
rule in those days the maximum of
money vas the minimum of the fine.
The big ditch, that eye sore, that
stencil in the nostrils of our people,
was a work of 1881. A part of the
town was a slough. particularly from
First to Third street, being very bad in
Railroad avenue, nea the center of
each block. To make lots saleable,
n following the cry started then and
annually repeated to this day, to pro-
vide a waterway for the river over
flow, to protect the railroad, the ditch
was dug. | have driven through water
three feet deep at the orner of First
street and Railroad avenue, but that
water came from the mountains. |
have been through mire hub deep on
the avenue east of Third street. The
slough has been filled and the streets
graded up. Many of our sidewalks,
upon the same level as now, were like
platforms to which a Wagon might and
did back for unloading, its bed level
| with the walk. Jaffa Bros store was
| so. f. j. Post & Co. was the same and
10 Moore's meat market, 212 Railroad
avenue, was set upon six foot piling,
and underneath his shop was his sta
bic. HI ditch was built and the stss-
mated water was, upon motion, alloN
ed to take its natural course"
A former council, the first town
council, through its ignorance, con
structed a V shaped trough through it's
entire length. 1t was a job, a steal.
The slough that ditch vas built to
drain has long been filed. Dig in Rail
road ven in front of Chaplin's shoe
store and three feet below the present
surface o will find a layer of terro-
mes put there by Henry Jaffa to raise
the grade. That was the original fill
ing; above that is a dirt fill, then an
other layer of sod, and then the fill for
the street grade. As it is there, so was
it done by the lot owners and by the
business tenants at a time when of
necessity it had TO be done. The bog
has been filled. Reunite the Griegos
ditch with the Barelas ditch-which
for several years has not been giving
Barelas people one-half the water they
NERN