The underground world of con men, winos, prostitutes, laborers, and artists has been an abundant source of material for great writers from Dickens to Bukowski. The underground world of Taos, New Mexico, is no different. In the late 1950s this mountain town was higher, brighter, poorer, and farther removed than London, Paris, or Los Angeles, but it was every bit as rich for the explorations of a young writer. Max Evans, the beloved New Mexican writer of such enduring classics of Western fiction as The Rounders and The Hi-Lo Country, returns to form with The King of Taos. Set in the late 1950s, the novel tells the stories of sharp-witted Zacharias Chacon, aspiring artist Shaw Spencer, and a circle of characters who drink, fight, love, argue, and—mostly—talk. Readers will enjoy this witty and moving evocation of unforgettable characters as they look for work, love, comfort, dignity, and bottomless oblivion.

A classic on all the trials and tribulations of the Santa Fé Trail, the Indian deprevations, the Mexican problems,the Fontier Military, the Fur Trappers, Fur Trade, and Mountain Men, Kit Carson, Uncle Dick Wooten, Buffalo Bill Cody, the Bents, Jim Beckwourth.

Old Santa Fe Today is an engaging read about Santa Fe's architecture, history, and important figures through its culturally significant properties, among them churches, government buildings, and homes. The book also serves as a walking tour guide for locals and visitors wanting to sightsee. Originally published in 1966, Old Santa Fe Today has been used by writers and scholars exploring the history and architectural significance of Santa Fe. With new essays updating the 1991 fourth edition, this fifth edition of the classic reference book also has a complete inventory of properties--now approximately one hundred--including those recently added to the Historic Santa Fe Foundation's "Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation" since 1961. Each property entry includes revised and expanded narratives on its architecture, history, and ownership, providing social and cultural context as well. Among the Register are the former homes of past influential artists and writers such as Olive Rush and Witter Bynner. The William Penhallow Henderson House, 555 Camino del Monte Sol, was the home of the famed painter and craftsperson and his poet wife Alice Corbin Henderson. Constructed over a decade from 1917 to 1928 and designed in the Spanish Pueblo Revival Style, it would serve as a model for other artist home studios in the heart of the Santa Fe art colony. The de la Peña house located at 831 El Caminito is a nineteenth-century Spanish Pueblo adobe farmhouse owned by the de la Peña family for eighty years. Artist, writer, and historic preservationist Frank Applegate purchased the home in 1925. In the late 1930s, the National Park Service added the house to its Historic American Buildings Survey, an honor reserved for the most important historic structures in the United States.

Contains recipes and food stories from trappers, traders, settlers, various Indian tribes, Mexicans, and military soldiers who traveled the Santa Fe Trail, with instructions on how to prepare such dishes as buffalo, elk, crane, Indian "washtunkala" (jerked meat stew), and "belly washes," such as Injun Whiskey (made with black gunpowder, red pepper, and tobacco juice).

John Potts Slough, the Union commander at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, lived a life of relentless pursuit for success that entangled him in the turbulent events of mid-nineteenth-century America. As a politician, Slough fought abolitionists in the Ohio legislature and during Kansas Territory’s fourth and final constitutional convention. He organized the 1st Colorado Volunteer Infantry after the Civil War broke out, eventually leading his men against Confederate forces at the pivotal engagement at Glorieta Pass. After the war, as chief justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court, he struggled to reform corrupt courts amid the territory’s corrosive Reconstruction politics. Slough was known to possess a volcanic temper and an easily wounded pride. These traits not only undermined a promising career but ultimately led to his death at the hands of an aggrieved political enemy who gunned him down in a Santa Fe saloon. Recounting Slough’s timeless story of rise and fall during America’s most tumultuous decades, historian Richard L. Miller brings to life this extraordinary figure.

This remarkable book unfolds a detailed and thoughtful history beginning in 1598 and continuing through 1924. Chapters are devoted to events preceding the founding of the city; the Pueblo Revolution; the reconquest of the city by General Diego de Vargas; its 25 years as a Mexican provincial capital; the city during the military occupation period; and stories about Billy the Kid, Gov. Samuel B. Axtell, and the Santa Fe Ring.