Tracing Joseph Mott's Journey from the West to Antonito
by Dr. Joseph D. Mott
I went to Colorado for a few days with my youngest daughter and my son, along with his wife and two children. We rode the Cumbres & Toltec railroad from Antonito into the mountains and back. Then we drove up the Conejos Canyon and camped one night at Aspen Glade campground. The Conejos River was a favorite fishing, picnicking and camping place in the southern part of the San Luis Valley for the early settlers. Going there was a special treat for the pioneers.
As we were driving north, close to the New Mexico-Colorado border, we drove by San Antonio Mountain (Rio Arriba County, NM). After arriving in Antonito that evening, we could see the same mountains to the south. It was nice and cool and we stayed there the first night. The second night we camped at Aspen Glade. On the third and fourth nights, we stayed in Santa Fe.
We know that my grandfather, Joseph Louis Mott, arrived in Antonito, Colorado, October 31st, 1880, driving livestock with the Robert H. Beers family in a wagon train from Idaho and Utah. It was very close to the time President Garfield was elected President of the United States. We know this from the history related by descendants of the Beers family.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad was completed from Alamosa to Antonito in March of 1880. Construction proceeded over Cumbres Pass to Chama, New Mexico, from March to the end of December of 1880. Joseph Mott would have seen the construction somewhere between Chama and Cumbres Pass. The Beers wagon train and stock would have passed right along several parts of it.
At that time in Antonito, the population was about 800. Joseph would have found a new railroad depot and other buildings. The railroad bypassed the old town of Conejos, which featured the oldest church in Colorado, and instead laid out and sold lots in the railroad town of Antonito. This was a pattern common to railroad building since the inter-continental railroad. The train traveled about 15 miles per hour, so the trip from Alamosa to Antonito would have been about two hours. New settlers in the southern end of the San Luis Valley were able to find work cutting timber and making railroad ties for the railroad. Sounds like hard work, but it was all hard work settling a new country.
The Denver & Rio Grande and Western Railroad, led by General Wilson Jackson Palmer, had plans to build the railroad all the way through New Mexico to Old Mexico. They got as far as Santa Fe, New Mexico. The construction to Santa Fe from Antonito started in March of 1880, the same time as the construction to Chama. They reached Espanola and beyond to White Rock Canyon by Dec 31, 1880. There they met the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad.
The route went from Antonito, skirted San Antonio Mountain, established railroad depots at Tres Piedras and Taos Junction, and then headed east to the Rio Grande Gorge, where it descended to the Rio Grande River. it then followed the Rio Grande to Espanola, New Mexico. It continued to White Rock Canyon. This is where it met the Atchison, Topeka & the Santa Fe.
There was a woman named Edith Warren who came from the East for health reasons and was hired to be the postmaster at Otowi, NM. She lived there for a long time and built a little cafe or teahouse. The scientists from Los Alamos and their wives had several get-togethers there to get away from the laboratories. Edith became friends with the Oppenheimers and other scientists.
The train went on to the center of Santa Fe, where there was a depot built. The train ride from Antonito to Santa Fe was sometimes called the “chili line,” since many of the houses along the route were decorated with ristras or strings of red chilis. It took 5 hours to travel from Antonito to Espanola.
After Joseph Mott died in 1894, his wife Emmeline worked in Espanola for about two years, according to their son Elmer. She undoubtedly rode the train to get to Espanola and back.
