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Nice drive northbound on the Turquoise Trail (NM 14) on my way to Las Vegas, New Mexico. The popular place on this route is Madrid, but for me it is just a typical crowded tourist spot these days, so I am glad to pass through to less congested spaces. Cerrillos is the sleepy little town that I really like. 
Like so many old mining boom towns in the West there isn't much happening there now, since the long past glory days, but it hangs on. I first visited in August 1988 on a road trip with my Mom to Santa Fe. We stopped at the antique shop and the Cerrillos Bar on our way through. Mom really got a kick out of visiting with owner Mary Mora and her collection of cats that had the run of the place.  When the 1998 movie "Vampires" was being filmed the name was changed to Mary's Bar, which is what you see today.
Mary Mora was known to be an independent, no nonsense kind of woman. She died in 2016, just short of her 100th birthday. To find out more about her, google Mary Mora Cerrillos, and check out her obituary from the Santa Fe New Mexican. It is full of interesting info about her.  The last two times I drove through town hoping the bar would be open, it was closed. So its status is unknown to me.
When Mom and I were briefly in Cerrillos on our 1988 trip, an Amtrak train rolled though town. That was so  , because the next month (September 1988) we were taking a long trip over the route from Flagstaff to Chicago! On that trip we went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field and afterward meet Harry Caray at his restaurant. We were staying in a motel in the suburbs and took commuter trains and the El to get to and from the ballpark. Following that we spent several days driving around in Wisconsin, visiting places we lived in the Milwaukee area, plus over to Grant County (WI) in the southwest part of the state to see places from her childhood days (Bagley and Fennimore). Then back to Flagstaff on the train. That was quite the trip!
Lots of historical information on Cerrillos can be found at: cerrillosnewmexico.com
Mining history: [ youtube video ] |
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