The Old-timers in Ramah can tell you
about another
Old-timer
named John Miller,
who wandered into the area in the early 1880's and settled here with his
Mexican wife Isadora. Rumors began spreading that John Miller was really
Billy the Kid. Supposedly he had confided to
several of his closest friends that he was Billy the Kid.
Read more...
More Stories about John Miller - aka Billy The Kid
Hawikuh was a Zuni Pueblo on a
hilltop, and one of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold (or Cibola), where
Conquistador Francisco Vásquez de Coronado believed the streets were
"Paved with Gold". Ride a
Virtual
"fly through" of the village as it appeared in 1540. Go to the
Zuni Visitor Center to arrange for a Guided Tour of the Ruins.
Conquistadors dubbed it El Malpais
meaning in Spanish "the bad country." And it was malpais--a mass of jagged,
jumbled, coal-black rock. The early travelers tried to avoid it. Most roads
simply skirted the lava flows. Trails, however, succeeded in slicing through
them. Indians living in the area, Acomas and Zunis, forged a footpath through
the malpais connecting the two pueblos and forming one of the oldest highways
in the region.
Read
More.....
In El Malpais (the badlands) near El Morro,
there are Legends of many hidden treasures. Martin Chavez
shares his family story about hunting for one of the Greatest treasures of El Malpais.
In November 1897, the last train
robbery of the Santa Fe Railroad occurred near the malpais. While
accounts differ, the perpetrators apparently belonged to the Black
Jack Christian gang. Gang members boarded the eastbound train either
before or at Grant's Station. About six miles east of Grant, the
outlaws disengaged the baggage cars from the locomotive and express
car. Using explosives, they blew apart the safe discovering $100,000
in gold and currency. The bandits headed south toward the malpais
hoping to lose any would-be trackers in the gnarled lava beds. While
some of the outlaws were apprehended, the whereabouts of the gold
remained elusive giving rise to speculation that it is still hidden in
the malpais.
Throughout El Morro Valley, lie scattered
the ancient ruins and mounds that long ago were great community centers of the
Anasazi - The Ancient Ones. During the 1200s AD, there was massive
human migration into El Morro Valley, drawing together social groups with
diverse origins and social practices to form new communities, creating
situations ripe for social change. An Anasazi community we now call "Atsina
Pueblo" sprang up, high atop El Morro Mesa, with 875 rooms, 1000-1500 residents
and was 2-3 times larger (in population) than present day Ramah, NM and larger
in size than the better known
Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon.
This fascinating
memoir presents moving vignettes of life on a ranch in northwestern New Mexico
beginning early in the last century. Barbara Mallery tells the story of her
family--the Evon Z. Vogt family--with insight, respect, fondness and humor,
concentrating on the years between 1905 and 1986. The book is designed to
resemble a colorful scrapbook with actual family photos, clippings, and other
personal mementos. It is illustrated with more than 30 historical photos that
portray a land of enduring history and the people who walked it: Navajos,
Hispanics, pioneering men and women who came to the Southwest from the Midwest
and the East.
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