On the left is a cut from Ruben Romero, from a beautiful CD titled Seville to Santa Fe: A Spanish Guitar Anthology - Talking Taco Music, '99. The other selection is from a similar vein. Here it's Jamie Palumbo, from his CD Solo Classical Guitar. It was released in '05 on Jadapa Records. t
The Santa Fe/Harvey Company's joint venture called Indian-detours (described further below by T.C. McLuhan) took the tourists off the tracks and into the "wilds." It's beginnings were the territory in the map above, with later additions of detours in both northern and southern Arizona, as well as the cliff dwellings and canyons of northwest New Mexico, southern Colorado and southern Utah. In the map above it should be noted that detours were available not just to the Indian Pueblos and the artists' colony in Taos, but also to the northern Spanish villages of Chimayo (Sanctuario), Cordova, and Truchas, as well as the Pecos River country to the east of Santa Fe - a trip for those folks who brought their rods and reels, and the mining district of Madrid, Cerillos, and Golden to the south of Santa Fe, known as "The Turquoise Trail." In time, you could charter a detour to go anywhere in the area that you desired - as long as there was a road to it. Of course, half-day tours of the city of Santa Fe itself were available for those who lacked the time, or the funds, for a more elaborate tour experience. The "miraculous" spiral staircase at the school/convent chapel of the Sisters of Loretto was always a highlight of a Santa Fe tour, and still is today. The nuns are long gone, having run out of recruits during the mass migration out of Catholic orders in the 60's-70's. The chapel was sold to a corporation that built a hotel next door. To see the staircase one pays a $2.50 admission charge to enter the corporate chapel.
Here's Anglin' Wayne & The Trollers, with a cut from their 12 Pack of Fishin'Songs CD, released on the Warren Nelson label in '03. (6:24)
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From DREAM TRACKS, THE RAILROAD AND THE AMERICAN INDIAN 1890-1930, by T.C. McLuhan
The Detour, which was a joint venture with Fred Harvey, made all of northern and central New Mexico and the Hopi villages and Canyon de Chelly of Arizona readily accessible to the sightseer for the first time. A laudatory editorial in the Albuquerque Morning Journal announced that the Santa Fe Railway and Fred Harvey had committed themselves to advertise the Detours on a large scale. They would spend " . . . literally hundreds of thousands of dollars . . . in advertising to make the Southwest known to the rest of the world."
A fleet of Packard automobiles, the first "road Pullmans" ever, whisked a few privileged tourists off the beaten path to the Indian pueblos and ruins of New Mexico and Arizona. The cars were painted "Tesuque" brown and displayed a stylized version of the Indian Thunderbird as an official insignia on the door. Tourists were called "detourists" or "dudes," their guides were "couriers," and the drivers "navigators." The Detour created a unique tourist environment. The cars were the very model of luxury, with heavy leather upholstery, folding rear-seat windshields, and two jump seats. Billed as a "land cruise" for the "most discriminating traveler," the motor trip deluxe focused on the "re-discovery of America" through the "Original Americans." Tourists were invited to camp out in style with the Indians.
The first Indian Detour took place on May 15, 1926. The Detours were advertised and sold by more than twelve thousand travel agents throughout the United States and Europe. They promised an unprecedented and portentous experience for the traveler. The tourist was enticed by advertising copy which proclaimed that "there is more of historic, prehistoric, human and scenic interest in New Mexico than in any other similar area in the world, not excepting India, Egypt, Europe, or Asia."
Hundreds of thousands of people first saw the Southwest and the Indian under the auspices of the Indian Detours. One veteran guide reported that she was personally responsible for as many as ten thousand tourists a year. Some of the distinguished participants of the Detour included Eleanor Roosevelt and her entourage, Harry Guggenheim and family, Albert Einstein and his wife, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and family, and visiting European royalty.
This is from a "children's" album from the 50's put out by the Folkways label (Smithsonian), titled The Pueblo Indians: In Story, Song and Dance, performed by Swift Eagle.
