NewMexiKen sees that Santa Fe has slipped behind Albuquerque suburb Rio Rancho and is now just the Land of Enchantment’s fourth most populated city. (Albuquerque is first; Las Cruces is second.)
Is it no wonder?
The appearance of the town defies description, and I can compare it to nothing but a dilapidated brick-kiln or a prairie-dog town. The inhabitants are worthy of their city, and a more miserable, vicious-looking population it would be impossible to imagine. Neither was the town improved, at the time of my visit, by the addition to the population of some three thousand Americans, the dirtiest, rowdiest crew I have ever seen collected together. Crowds of drunken volunteers [American soldiers] filled the streets, brawling and boasting, but never fighting; Mexicans, wrapped in serapes, scowled upon them as they passed; donkey-loads of hoja—corn-shucks—were hawked about for sale; and Pueblo Indians and priests jostled the rude crowds of brawlers at every step. Under the portals were numerous monte-tables, surrounded by Mexicans and Americans. Every other house was a grocery, as they call a gin or whisky shop, continually disgorging reeling, drunken men, and everywhere filth and dirt reigned triumphant.
[George F. Ruxton, an Englishman, who visited in 1846. Quoted in David Dary’s The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore
NewMexiKen loves Santa Fe, a city that works very hard at maintaining its image. Still, it’s good to throw a little reality about their past at them from time-to-time.