Santa Fe to Acoma, New Mexico Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of North America

with my reliable Appletons' Guide.

Published in the late 19th century,

Appletons' General Guide to North America will direct me to all that's

novel, beautiful, memorable and striking in the United States.

-ALL:

-Goed!

As I journey across this vast continent

I'll discover how pioneers and cowboys conquered the West.

MEDLEY OF GUNSHOTS

And how the railroads tied this nation together,

helping to create the global superstate of today.

By the time of my guidebook,

railroad tracks stretched across the continent,

and Americans were using them to tour their land for pleasure.

My rail journey westward from St Louis to the Grand Canyon,

covering maybe 1,700 miles, is reaching its climax.

I've hugged the banks of the Missouri and Arkansas rivers.

I've followed the wagons along the old Santa Fe Trail.

And I've ridden on transcontinental tracks first laid in the 1870s.

Now it's time to wallow in some of the luxury offered by the West today

before witnessing one of the greatest sights on earth.

I began my journey in St Louis, Missouri.

Then headed to Kansas City.

From there I struck out west across the plains to gun-toting Dodge City

before arriving in the Rocky Mountains at Colorado Springs.

Now I'm heading south, through New Mexico,

ending at the spectacular natural wonder of Arizona's Grand Canyon.

Today, I explore Santa Fe,

then turn south to a Native American settlement in Acoma.

I discover how the great outdoors adds to the drama of opera.

John Crosby thought that it would be a shame to enclose the theatre when

we are surrounded by such incredible natural beauty.

Uncover Santa Fe's historic past.

It's the longest continuously occupied public building

in the whole United States.

When the White House was built, it was 200 years old already.

And I'm privileged to be invited to visit

an ancient Native American pueblo.

How long has there been a settlement up here?

The way we describe it to ourselves is,

we've been here since the beginning of time.

Amtrak's Southwest Chief service crosses eight states between Chicago

and Los Angeles in three days.

A full restaurant service means that hungry passengers

can eat great food, as some of the world's

most awesome landscape rolls by.

-Your steak, sir.

-Thank you.

Steak knife for you.

Is there anything else I can bring you right now, Michael?

Oh, Linda, it looks great.

I'm going to be just fine.

Thank you.

Look at that - perfect.

Mmm!

My journey West has brought me into the state of New Mexico,

which retains its Hispanic heritage dating back to the time before its

conquest by the United States.

After the rough-and-tumble of the Wild West,

it's time for some luxury,

and to discover how, in Santa Fe, there arose a biblical epic,

appropriately, perhaps, since the city's name

translates as "holy faith".

Founded in 1607,

Santa Fe was the capital of the Spanish kingdom of New Mexico,

and is the state capital today.

The city's distinctive low adobe buildings

with their round walls and flat roofs

are made from bricks formed of sun-dried earth and straw.

The architecture of Santa Fe is delightfully dominated

by the Spanish colonial period.

We Europeans scoff at the Americans

because they don't have many old buildings.

Well, the mission of San Miguel was built at the beginning of

the 17th century, which makes it older

than London's St Paul's Cathedral,

or France's Palace of Versailles.

So perhaps we should show some humility.

In the late 19th century,

railroad refreshment was a much less leisurely experience

than mine aboard the Southwest Chief.

Passengers had to disembark and were given 15 minutes

to eat and freshen up before re-boarding.

Thanks to a British immigrant named Fred Harvey,

arrangements began to improve.

'I'm meeting Jenny Kimball at La Fonda Hotel.'

Jenny, now, I believe it was once a Harvey hotel, what did that mean?

Well, Fred Harvey operated hotels all along the railroad line.

And the Fred Harvey Company bought it in the early '20s.

Which meant it was part of the Harvey chain.

Fred Harvey had worked as a railroad caterer

which is how he spotted a gap in the market

for good food on long journeys.

In 1876, he struck out on his own

and opened the first of his restaurants

on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.

At its peak in 1928, Fred Harvey's empire,

comprised nearly 100 restaurants and 25 hotels known as Harvey Houses.

Within his hotels and restaurants

tell me about the sort of service you could expect?

Service was impeccable, only the best,

white glove silver service.

And it was mainly because of the Harvey Girls.

The Harvey Girls were educated women, mainly from the East Coast,

that wanted an adventure.

They were trained in manners, service.

They had impeccable starched uniforms.

And they couldn't be married.

They couldn't fraternise with the guests.

So, I mean, they had a whole list of dos and don'ts.

But they really elevated the service at all of the Harvey Hotels.

The Santa Fe Railroad Company

introduced Pullman dining cars in 1888.

And Fred Harvey provided both the menu and the staff.

What was served until then was what they called slop, the Western slop.

He served lobster.

He served very sophisticated European food on the train.

May have been kind of the precursor to first class on an aeroplane.

He didn't do badly for a lad from Lancashire, England.

No, he did not do badly, yeah.

With good quality food and impeccable service,

the Fred Harvey Brand became widely known in America.

And in 1946, Fred's Harvey Girls were immortalised in a film

starring Judy Garland.

'Bernette Jarvis and Beverly Ireland worked at La Fonda Hotel

'in the 1950s.'

How did you get the job of being a Harvey Girl?

We moved here from Minnesota in 1955.

We thought it was a temporary job.

It turned out to be several years of a wonderful experience.

What attracted you about the reputation of Harvey Girls?

Find service, elegant dishes, food was marvellous.

It just was a prestige job.

It was the only place in Santa Fe that was a nice hotel.

And we worked breakfast and lunch

only because we were 18 years old and couldn't serve liquor.

Looking back, are you pleased that you were Harvey Girls?

Absolutely.

It was a hard job because of the standard

but it was a way to get ladies a job.

To get away from home.

And to be in the workforce.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I'm heading seven miles north of Santa Fe

to an adobe building inspired by the high desert landscape

which it inhabits.

As though to symbolise the civilisation of the West,

Santa Fe has an opera house of global renown,

attracting the best talent.

Audiences travel for thousands of miles.

I made the pilgrimage myself some years ago.

The auditorium is like no other.

It has no sides.

For many productions, the backdrop is provided by the mountains and the

sunsets of New Mexico.

What better place to perform Puccini's La Fancuilla del West -

The Girl of the Golden West?

The general director of the Santa Fe Opera is Charles MacKay.

Charles, how and why did they think of building an opera house here?

60 years ago John Crosby, the founder,

had always had the dream of founding an opera company here.

And so, lo and behold,

he talked his parents into fronting the money

to build the first theatre

and persuaded a group of businessmen in Santa Fe to back it

and the company got started.

John Crosby was a New York musician with a passion for opera.

Santa Fe had a long connection with visual artists and writers

but little with musical life.

Crosby set out to change that in 1957 by building

a 480-seat wooden theatre

and inaugurating a summer opera festival.

He always had the idea of doing something that was very different,

to combine standard, rarely performed and new works,

and to create the first apprentice programme for singers

in the United States.

Fire destroyed Crosby's Theatre in 1967.

Within a year it was replaced with a larger structure.

And in 1998, the present 2000-seat auditorium opened.

Was it always the idea from the beginning

-to have a sideless and backless opera house?

-It was.

John Crosby thought that it would be a shame to enclose the theatre when

we are surrounded by such incredible natural beauty.

And to have a beautiful sunset as the performance is beginning.

And occasionally that the elements

contribute to the telling of the story.

So what happens when you get torrential rain?

If the rain is coming down vertically, everything is fine.

But when it's coming horizontally that's a little bit of a problem.

It can get a little bit dicey if the rain gets into the orchestra pit.

Sometimes you might end up with a performance

where there's just one first violin playing at the end of the opera.

Puccini's The Girl of the Golden West is a love story between Minnie,

a saloon owner, and a bandit called Dick Johnson.

And is set during the California gold rush of 1849.

Cooper Nolan is an apprentice singer at the opera.

Cooper. Good to see you.

-Good to see you, how's it going?

-Very well.

I understand you're on the Santa Fe Opera apprenticeship programme.

Yes, I am. This is my second year.

Now you're studying the role of Dick Johnson?

-Correct.

-In The Girl of the Golden West.

Would you be so kind as to sing me a little bit?

-Sure, absolutely.

-What are you going to sing?

So this is the second act aria after she's discovered

that Dick Johnson is not who he says he is.

He still loves her, but he's been lying.

He's actually the bandit that everyone's been looking for.

# Or son sei mesi che mio padre mori

# E il labbro mio mormoro un'ardente preghiera

# Oh Dio!

# Ch'ella non sappia mai

# Non sappia mai la mia vergogna!

# Non sappia mia!

# Il sogno e stato vano!

# Ora ho finito. #

Well done. You've convinced me you're a good guy.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming around.

-And a very good singer.

-Thank you.

NOTES ON XYLOPHONE RING OUT

When the railroad arrived in 1880 it followed the route of the earlier

Santa Fe Trail, which had brought pioneers from Missouri.

As people in the eastern states grew wealthier,

the more intrepid among them began to venture west as tourists.

Appletons' quotes the writings of a Mrs Wallace who was married to the

United States Governor before New Mexico was a state.

"The ancient governor's palace

"extends along one whole side of the plaza,

"a long low structure built of adobe.

"Santa Fe was a stronghold before

the Spanish conquest and a town of some

"importance to the white race when Pennsylvania was still a wilderness.

"It is rich in historic interest."

Time to discover more about the palace and about the Wallaces.

'Meredith Davidson is curator at the Palace of the Governors,

'a New Mexico history museum.'

Meredith, I'm very struck by the depth of history here.

The number of regimes that there have been in Santa Fe,

and specifically in this governors palace.

It was built in 1610.

It's the longest continuously occupied public building

in the whole United States.

When the White House was built, it was 200 years old already.

It's seen five separate governments across its history.

Before it was cited in 1608,

New Mexico was occupied by Native Americans.

It was part of the Spanish Empire from 1610 on.

After that it was briefly part of Mexico,

when Mexico declared independence in 1821.

And following that it became a US territory.

And then later became a state in 1912.

I'm in search of one particular governor mentioned in Appletons'.

Governor Wallace.

Yes, Governor Wallace was our governor from 1878 to 1881.

And he was here at a really fascinating moment

where the railroads were coming into New Mexico for the first time,

where there was still quite an environment

of what romantically is sort of called the Wild West.

Lew Wallace was a Union general in the Civil War.

A lawyer and diplomat.

But his fame today largely rests on his work as a writer.

So we've come down here to look at the chair

that belonged to Governor Lew Wallace.

It was from here that he wrote or presumably wrote the book that

he became most well known for, Ben Hur, which came out in 1880.

So, he would sit there, and this is his writing desk, his table.

-He has it on his lap.

-Right.

Exactly.

Set in the Roman Empire,

the novel tells the story of a young Jewish man of means who loses his

family and freedom because of the injustice of a Roman officer.

But eventually triumphs through his own determination

and the intervention of Jesus Christ.

Adaptations for stage and screen followed, most famously in 1959,

starring Charlton Heston as Ben Hur.

Was it a successful book?

Ben Hur was really an instant success.

It very quickly surpassed sales of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

A book that had been, since the Civil War, really,

one of the most purchased books in the nation.

I'm continuing my journey from Santa Fe south west,

on an excursion recommended by my Appletons'.

My next destination will be Acoma.

Appletons' says, "the towns of these Indians are similarly interesting

"and well worth a visit. On an eminence commanding a view

"so situated that they can be approached

"only through a narrow defile.

"The houses are two or three storeys,

"ranged in the form of hollow squares.

"Access can be had only by ladders to the second storeys.

"The first being built solid without an opening."

By the end of the 19th century

the Native American had become a curiosity,

a tourist attraction.

The Pueblo Indians of the South West

take their name from the Spanish word used by the first explorers

to describe the apartment-like buildings in which they live.

19 Pueblo communities remain in New Mexico.

They welcome tourists to buy the pottery for which they're renowned,

but filming is rarely allowed.

It's a privilege for me to be invited to visit Acoma Pueblo

on its sandstone bluff 367 feet high.

'I'm meeting tribal secretary John Sims.'

These houses are very much as described in my guidebook

with the ladders.

It says that in those days there was no opening on the ground floor.

Yes. You know, the ground floor was basically meant for storage

and in case there was intruders or anything like that

you would pull the ladders up

and the living quarters were on the second storey,

so everybody was nice and safe.

The view from here is absolutely breathtaking.

How long has there been a settlement up here?

The way we describe it to ourselves

is we've been here since the beginning of time,

but in terms of anthropology, you can date us to 1500 AD.

Did they settle here for defensive for religious reasons?

The mesa top here was chosen I think more particularly for defence

than anything else.

How did you fare with the Spanish when they arrived?

They originally came in, and for the most part the Pueblos welcomed them.

The Spanish had other things in mind,

which was to take over land and territories

and for the most part they were also looking for riches.

They were looking for gold and they didn't find them.

You know, the battle for Acoma is definitely a large one

in the context of the Pueblo world.

The battle of Acoma between the Spanish and the Pueblo Indians

in 1598 was devastating, with up to 1,500 native Americans killed.

Over the following decades the Spanish continued

to repress the Pueblos, until in 1680, the tribes united in revolt.

The Pueblos got together and through force

drove the Spanish out of New Mexico

and the Spanish basically did not enter New Mexico territory for

about a decade, for almost ten years

and in those ten years it allowed the Pueblos to rebuild

and to basically bring back their traditions.

With regard to the present day,

do you think that the Pueblos have survived better

than some other tribe?

The Pueblos have survived a lot better

than our brothers and sister tribes out in the rest of North America.

For one instance, a lot of us weren't pushed onto reservations.

We got to stay in our homeland, like you see us here today.

And secondly, our culture and language survived.

When the railroad came through,

not only did it bring jobs,

but it brought commerce, it brought tourism.

Up to that point our people were basically farmers, hunters,

but with tourism, brought money.

We took an item that was traditionally used...

..in the homes and so our ladies started to make

pottery for these people that were coming through the railroads.

Later on as the train kept building and the lines kept building,

our people found work with them and so to this day

you find large numbers of Acoma people in places like Sacramento,

in places like Arizona and that was the total direct result of them

working for the railroad.

How would you say the United States treats the Pueblo people today?

The overall thing is that you hear in Acoma we have been here

through the Spanish, we were part once of Mexico also, you know?

And then we're here through the American government and as strong as

America is, once the Spanish thought they were just as strong and just as

mighty, and so for Acoma people,

we're going to be here till the end of time.

In 1492, Columbus discovered America.

That's what I was taught at school,

but that Europe-centric view has been discredited for neglecting the

millions of Native Americans who lived at one with nature

in dramatic scenery such as this.

Nowadays, this Pueblo town benefits from tourists,

attracted not least by its pottery.

At least that way the Pueblos are recognised

and regain a foothold

in the historical landscape of North America...

Next time, I'll marvel at American steam technology.

My goodness, John, that is enormous!

..discover the flavours of New Mexico...

That's perfect. Excellent.

More chilli on top.

..and watch the earth open below me.

Here we go over the edge and the ground falls away beneath us.