The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-08-30
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN, Director.
Washington, d. G.
DuDE WRANGLERS.

the last part of it, at least, has been
steadily gaining significance with the
years Sheep are not dear this year.
/ On the contrary, the bottom is out of
the wool market and wool is about
the only thing that brings much
money into New Mexico The cattle
business is also up against hard times.
| Good crops are ripening, but there is
little market for them.
Tenderfeet, on the other hand, are
at a premium. Every dollar in the
tenderfoots pocket looks twice as
large to the native as it did year ago.
And the tenderfoot always has dollars
in his pocket, and there are many
ways of helping him spend them. He
| must be fed and housed, of course, but
in addition to that he must be sup
piled with large assortment of SOU
venirs and curiosities, and above all,
he must be shown the great southwest.
Taking care of the tenderfoot is
really becoming a leading industry in
| the northern half of New Mexico.
| New Mexico is Just beginning to be
| discovered by the travelling public, and
each year brings tourists in larger
1 numbers than the year before. If
| high fares kept down the travel by rail
little this year, the stream of jitney-
pilgrims which flows over the trans
continental roads was great enough to
make up the deficiency.
Albuquerque caters to the health
seeker rather than the pleasure
seeker. 1t has half q dozen sani-
tariums on the high mesa to the east
I or 1t, it has some of the best tubercu-
losis specialists in the country, and it
| has a long list of complete recoveries
from tuberculosis to its credit. But it
is also prepared to take care of the
man who wants to see the country.
There is at least one organization
which makes a business of taking the
tourist anywhere he wants to go and
telling him all about it, and there are
several shops where he can get the
load of Indian blankets, pottery and
| baskets which every traveller to this
part of the country brings home with
him.
The Indian Country.
New Mexico is a country admirably
adapted to the entertainment of the
man from the east. 1t is a land of
level plateauS broken by mountain
ranges. Scattered over this wilderness
are the villages of the Pueblo Indians
the Only Indians in America who
still live much as they did in pre-
Columbus days. These Indians have
every summer a number of dances and
fiestas which provide spectacles of
barbaric beauty. In addition to these
living Indians, there are the dead
cities of the cliff jewellers, wonder
fully preserved.
The roads across the mesas are
smooth and good. The mountains
supply scenery that will bring an
ejaculation from the most hardened
sight-seer. There are hundreds of
mountain streams alive with trout, and
good hunting in the fall. In addition
to this, the southwest has a GER
tain fascination that is indefinable.
Whether it is the ever-varying beauty
of the country, or the peculiar stimu-
hating quality of its air, or its restful,
good-natured, unbusinesshke Amos
phere, or a combination of all these
things, the southwest has the power of
attaching people to it. The man who
solves that he will come back some
time. There are thousands now who
come back every summer.
The New Mexicans have been quick
to realize that their country has a
great future as national playground,
band that that future depends upon
keeping their country the odd and
beautiful place that it is. They are
preserving their antiquities, they are
cooperating with the government for
the protection of their forests and
fish and game, they are building roads
and trails, they are even making over
their towns and the houses they live in.
You must go to Santa Fe TO see this
last process at its best. large num-
Der of artists and a few writers and
arcnaeologists have settled in Santa
Fe, and these have been Joined by the
effort to make Santa Fe, which is
the second oldest city in the United
States, also one of the most pic
turesque. A new hotel. a new post
office, and a new theater are now
being built about it's ancient plaza,
and all of these are being done in the
Pueblo Indian style of architecture,
and decorated by artists of high abil
! ity. In addition to these public build
ings, many private residences are
being built in the same curious style.
The result is that Santa Fe is acquir-
ing an appearance extremely exotic
and foreign.
America is said to be more uniform
in appearance than any other country
in the world. An American town of a
given size is just the same from coast
to coast. Main Street" is as stand
ard an article as given brand of soap
or chewing gum. Well, in Santa Fe.
Main Street" is an ancient square
with a lawn and thick shade trees.
Half of the buildings about it are old
abodes with projecting roof beams.
Many of its shop windows show gaudy
, Navajo blankets, pottery and all the
other colorful wares of the Pueblos.
Along its sidewalks. blanketed Indians.
bighatted cowboys, and Mexicans
make up the crowd. Main Street" is
here a place individual. not to say
bizarre.
The fastener Adorned.
Among this crowd is always a GER
tain number of individuals whose
dress is picturesque almost beyond the
dreams of a movie fan. They wear
big brown hats, creased in the center,
wooden shirts, often of 3 bright color
with a silk bandana of another bright
color around the neck. Their khaki
trousers are thrust into riding boots
Often they adorn the whole with a
great pair of silver spurs or rattle
snake hat band.
These striking figures include women
as well as men, and the women are
! dressed about the same as the men, al
ways in trousers. and usually with the
addition of some fetching Indian
jewelry in silver and turquoise.
Who are these people, you ask?
They are sun-burned, grinning, happy.
They seem to have nothing to do