Imagine that you’re walking along the dusty main street of Taos, NM, 125 years ago in April. It’s a pleasant day with fragrant flowers and fruit trees in blossom, temperatures in the low 60s, no blustery spring winds and a receding cap of snow on towering Taos Mountain just to your east.
Somewhere in the distance, you hear a steady “pop, pop, pop” noise approaching you. Up the street you spot the source of the noise. It looks like a moving horse-drawn carriage, but without any horses.
As the strange device gets closer, you recognize the person sitting on the bench seat where someone would normally be holding a set of reins to guide the horses. Instead of reins, the man is holding onto what looks like a boat tiller. The popping noise is coming from a crude gasoline fueled engine.
The man on the contraption is Dr. T.P. Martin, the local physician everyone in the small town knows simply as “Doc Martin,” whose office is right on Paseo del Pueblo.
According to an article in the April 30, 1900 edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican, Martin has had an automobile shipped to him from Denver on the old Denver & Rio Grande “Chile Line” narrow-gauge railroad that stopped 50 miles west in Tres Piedras.
“Dr. T.P. Martin, secretary of the New Mexico Board of Health and for years a practicing physician at Taos, recently received from Denver a strictly up to date automobile or gasoline carriage which he intends to use in making trips over the comparatively level road between Taos and the railroad station at Tres Piedras,” the article said. “The distance is about 49 miles and can be covered with the automobile at the rate of fourteen miles per hour. It is expected that the doctor will ride into the capital city (Santa Fe) on his new carriage before many weeks.”
It is believed that this was the first automobile in the state of New Mexico, and it’s likely that it was first driven from Tres Piedras to Taos within a few days of this date, 125 years ago.
Records don’t show what kind of vehicle it was, since there were not many automobile manufacturers in existence at that time, but the newspaper article seems to suggest it was gasoline powered. There is some speculation that it was a design which featured a tiller as a steering mechanism instead of a round steering wheel.
Photo Courtesy of Taos Historic Museums.
Martin was an interesting character in the early history of Taos. He brought modern medicine to the nearby Taos Pueblo, and to the Penitentes religious sect that was common in northern New Mexico. He was a surgeon and served on the New Mexico Board of Health and also was involved in various civic organizations. His office and home was on Paseo del Pueblo, the main north-south street in Taos. After his death, his widow turned the facility into the “Hotel Martin,” which later became the historic “Taos Inn.” The portion of the hotel which was once his office is now a restaurant named “Doc Martin’s.”
Martin was also involved in the arts scene in Taos, hosting the first meeting of the “Taos Society of Artists” at his home. That meeting on July 19, 1915, was attended by famous artists Ernest Blumenschein, W. Herbert Dutton, Bert Phillips, Joseph Henry Sharp, E. Irving Couse and Oscar E. Beringhaus. They were originally known as the “Taos Six”. Martin’s sister was married to Bert Phillips.
Here’s a link for the “Taos Society of Artists:”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taos_Society_of_Artists
It is believed that the second automobile in New Mexico was brought to Albuquerque in the fall of 1900 by local businessman R.L. Dodson. This particular vehicle was a steam-powered “locomobile” which featured a tiller instead of a steering wheel.
The third car brought to New Mexico was purchased by H.L. Galles, who was born in Hillsborough in Sierra County. He started New Mexico’s first automobile dealership in Albuquerque in 1908 which still operates today under his name. His Cadillac dealership was said to be the third one granted by the luxury car makers in the United States.
Although I could not find the specific connection in Ancestry.com, I believe he must have been a nephew of Nicholas Galles, the man credited with founding the community of Hillsborough and the first president of the old First National Bank of Dona Ana County, where I worked for many years.
I also looked up information about the first automobile in Las Cruces and found that it was a 1915 Ford Model T had been converted into a fire truck. It continued to serve the city until 1934 when it was decomissioned. It was owned for several years by a private individual and was gifted back to the city in 2022.
It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like to drive one of those vehicles in the early 1900s, given the lack of decent roads and primitive technology which could often leave you stranded at the side of the road. When I get into my new GMC pickup truck, I am greeted by color TV screens larger that our first 13-inch black and white home television set. When I drive, I can monitor camera views from at least eight different angles, determine the air pressure in my tires and my fuel consumption. I am protected by a warning system that beeps when I get too close to an object and automatically jams on the brakes when I’m about to hit something going forward or in reverse. I have a satellite connected roadmap of virtually anywhere I go and a source any kind of music or news that I desire to hear. It’s a highly protected and comfortable transportation pod that can lull your senses into forgetting that you’re hurtling down the highway at 75 miles per hour.
I guess drivers in the early 1900s just had to endure enjoying the scenery and the visceral jolting experience as they chugged along at 14 miles per hour through the New Mexico landscape. Actually, come to think of it, that’s not so bad.
aero-cordero.com 