| On the road again. Going through some mountainous areas on the way to Las Vegas. No, not that one. There's one in New Mexico and I'll bet you've seen it without even knowing. |
 |
| This is one thing you may have seen
before. In the movie No Country for Old Men, several scenes
were set here, called Eagle Pass Hotel in the film. Much of the
movie was set in Las Vegas. The hotel was built in 1882 and like so many others on the plaza and down the adjacent Bridge Street, it is an historic building. |
 |
| Nice room. Technically my room was not in the historic hotel building but the also historic building next door that was connected at some point. |
 |
| Got a bit of desert on my shoes earlier in the day. I had to clean them off just about every day on the trip. There were a lot of dirty washcloths left in hotel rooms. |
 |
| Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) followed Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) up these stairs to his room in the movie. It didn't end well for Woody's character. |
 |
| The Plaza Hotel is on the plaza. The town was established by Mexican settlers in 1835. |
 |
| This wooden statue is called El Campesino, which is Spanish for The Peasant. |
 |
| Bridge Street, which leads up to the plaza, has lots of old buildings. And you know me. I like old buildings. Wait, you do know me, don't you? |
 |
| The Stern and Nahm Building, built in 1885, originally housed a newspaper. It later became a dry goods store. I don't know what the building to the left of it is. I took pictures of the little plaques on the storefronts but I guess I didn't get that one. |
 |
| So according to that plaque on the bridge, Francisco Coronado crossed the Gallinas River here in 1541. This bridge was not there at the time so I wonder how he crossed the river. |
 |
| Oh, he probably just jumped so he wouldn't get his boots wet. |
 |
| I did get a picture of the plaque for this place. It is the Chapman Hall / Winternitz Block. It's the oldest structure on Bridge Street. The years it says are 1860's and 1894, having been a granary and later a billiard parlor owned by Frank Chapman. I guess that's the 1860's part. David Winternitz later added to the building for his growing hardware business, I suppose in 1894. |
 |
| Maloof Hall was built in 1921 by the Maloof family on the site of the W.H. Shupp Carriage Manufactory, called the "best carriage works in the territory", which supplied rolling stock throughout New Mexico and Arizona. The El Rialto Restaurant has been there since 1975. |
 |
| The E. Romero Hose and Fire Company was
founded in 1882 and the building was built in 1909. That's what the
years on the front mean. The building on the right that now houses Tito's was Isador Stern's "Famous" Dry Goods Store and dates to 1881. It was later the site of the West Las Vegas Town Hall and jail. The plaque says that the cells still exist in the rear of the building. |
 |
| I found a whole article online about
this building, but I will spare everyone and just give the Reader's
Digest version. (Yeah, that's a reference that's aging poorly.) Emmanuel Rosenwald arrived in Las Vegas in 1862 and established himself as a successful merchant and financier. His sons commissioned the building in 1908. The company thrived until the 1920's when it closed during a rural depression. In the 1950's it was repurposed as a factory for the production of military parachutes for the Korean War. You can't really see it in the small photo, but the sign above the doors says Navajo Textiles Inc. |
 |
| The old First National Bank building, erected in 1880, is now occupied by the West Las Vegas Schools. |
 |
| This was the Charles Ilfeld Company
Department Store. The smaller part on the left was built in 1882 and
the larger addition on the right was completed in 1890. You can see the connecting section between the old Plaza Hotel building and this one on the left. The old department store building is now part of the hotel. This was the part that my room was in. |
 |
| There is a small restaurant in the hotel. |
 |
| I had the Rio Grande Gorge, which is a beef patty on a flour tortilla with white cheddar, grilled onions and green chile. It would not be the first green chile I would have on my trip. It's a very popular thing in New Mexico. |
 |
| In the movie there was a front desk down here in the lobby, I believe on the right. Things did not go well for the night manager. |
 |
| After dinner I decided to walk off my meal, so I went back down Bridge Street again. |
 |
| Okay, another movie location. Did you see Paul, the movie with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost about a couple of sci-fi nerds who find an alien? If not, you should. It's really funny. Anyway, the guys buy some children's Western wear to disguise the little grey alien at this store. |
 |
| And this theatre was seen in the movie as well. They shot the film up and down Bridge Street. |
 |
| I wandered off of Bridge Street a little and came across these townhouse apartments that date to 1902. Yes, there was a plaque. |
 |