After our trip up the Sandia
Mountains we decided to continue following the Turquoise Trail as far as
Madrid.
Founded sometime during the mid-1800’s,
Madrid was a coal mining town. Because
of the geology both hard and soft coal was mined, this was unique as there were
only two other mines in the world where this happened. I must admit I thought coal was coal and had
no idea it could be hard or soft.
The shafts were very deep going as far
down as 2,500 ft. During its heyday the
town supplied coal to the Santa Fe Railroad, local consumers and the US
Government. When coal declined Madrid
became a ghost town.
These days Madrid is known for its
galleries and arts and crafts stores, it also has an original soda fountain as
well as an original tavern.
The road through town is quite narrow and we had trouble parking the truck
so it didn't stick out into the road.
If we’d gone in the middle of summer (we were there in April) I'm not sure where we would've been able to park.
We had coffee at Jezebels, the Soda
Fountain, after that we walked along to the tavern and mooched around the
stores. There were some lovely things
and some gorgeous lamps.
By this time it was getting late and
places were closing up, so we headed back to Bernalillo.
Have fun, we are!
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