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- San Antonio, New Mexico - not Texas
San Antonio, New Mexico - not Texas
- By Phyllis Eileen Banks
- Published 12/30/2002
- Southwest New Mexico , Socorro County
- Unrated
Phyllis Eileen Banks
Phyllis Eileen Banks is both writer and artist.Her articles have appeared in Southern New Mexico Magazine, FYI, Vision Magazine, Roswell Daily Record, New Mexico Magazine, Ranger Rick, Concern, Anchorage Daily News, and other periodicals. In addition, with Cynthia Smith she authored The Anchorage Fun Book.
Much of her experience has been as an editor.Her editorial experience includes The Alaska Presbyterian, The Alaska Heart, newsletter of the Alaska Heart Association, the book COCAHINIA (Consultation on Church and Human Need in Alaska), and Roaming Southern New Mexico.
"I have invisible antennae that 'vibrate' when something doesn't seem right.Of course editing someone else's work is easier than editing one's own," she says.
People stories, historical pieces, and travel writing are her favorites.She and her husband, Hal, moved to New Mexico from Alaska.
"New Mexico has some of the same mystic of Alaska – wide open spaces, different cultures.The transition was easy," says Eileen."It is truly The Land of Enchantment and no matter where you reside you carry it with you."
Phone:727-544-3713
View all articles by Phyllis Eileen BanksThe post office was established in 1870, and is still in existence. The site of this village may date back as far as 1600. According to Mr. Julyan, a document that mentions Estancia de San Antonio exists with that date . Two friars established a mission at the Piro Indian Pueblo, but after the Pueblo revolt of 1680, people left. Floods, pot hunting and recycling of materials makes it very difficult to establish exactly where the pueblo may have existed.
At about the time the post office was established, northern Hispanic settlers began to resettle there, and they kept the name San Antonio. These settlers raised grain, beans, chile, onions and grapes, and the Atcheson Topeka and the Santa Fe Railroad established a station there. The railroad was soon hauling alfalfa, wine, coal and coke. It was the advent of the railroad that ultimately gave the community its fame. Conrad Hilton's father arrived here in the 1880s and opened a store. He was later to become known as "The merchant king of San Antonio," as he also established a stage line to White Oaks, a then-mining town ei
In his autobiography Be My Guest, Conrad gives an amusing anecdote that indicates the confusion over San Antonio, New Mexico and San Antonio, Texas. "I was not born in Texas," Conrad says. This unalterable fact caused a brief moment of embarrassment for Governor Beauford H. Jester when he offered to make Conrad a "Texan of Distinction."
"I had accepted the honor," Hilton relates. "The press was alerted; the guests bidden to the traditional banquet . . . Being born in Texas was the prime requisite for the pending honor . . . Texans, it would seem, whether distinct or otherwise, are born and not made."
After much flurry and many phone calls, the Governor found a way out of the dilemma of Conrad being born in New Mexico and not Texas. "You will become the only honorary Texan of Distinction in the world," said the Governor.
Today the Hilton family home, at Sixth and Main Street, is in ruins. The Owl Bar, a tourist stopover and meeting place for locals, contains the bar from the old Crystal Palace. The bar is listed on the State Historical and Cultural Properties . The old Crystal Palace still stands on Main Street but is not open to the public.
The coal, wine and crops are gone, but San Antonio, New Mexico, still exists.