I had never been to this little town before trying out to be a movie extra.   And it is an interesting place in a land-that-time-forgot sort of way.   It seems that the heyday of this place was from about 1890 to 1930, and they have the lovely architecture to prove it.  This town is not on the main highway, but it’s off to the side, so you have to want to go there.   As the main industry is Supermax, the federal maximum security prison,  you really don’t want to be sent there.

Me and Miss P did wander around a bit on the day before our movie shooting started just to have a look around.

There is this lovely brick train station, I followed the tracks to find it and to see what sort it was. Trains no longer stop here, instead it’s been re-purposed as a Senior Center.

I’m not sure why banks used to have pillars on the front, perhaps to denote a fortress-like security for your money.

The faded paint on the side of the building proclaims that this building once housed a dry goods store.

This building was most likely a small department store, but now it sells bits of the flotsam of the past.   The main street was a collection of these shops catering to the tourist trade.   The residents must go to the larger nearby town to do their shopping.

Celebrating the movie crew working there, this former theater is now a community building.   The front windows had a display of vintage film projectors, possibly original to the building (1923).   Or perhaps as they were rather monstrous contraptions, they were from when films converted to sound.

I loved this sign “Tipping, it’s not just for cows anymore.”   This is what I was reminded of the first time I saw a sign that said “no flytipping.”   And as the thought of flytipping did not make any sense,  it made me laugh at the absurdity of it.

Once upon a time trains were the preferred mode of travel.   The Interstate (motorway) had not yet been invented, and train travel was smooth and easy (except when the train derailed and killed you).   I always knew that there are three train stations in town, but I never really thought about why this was.

So I was reading this book recently and saw a picture of one of the train stations.  It also said that it had been destroyed, so I was rather surprised when I went to a meeting this past week and looked up.

I was looking at the ceiling when I realized that this room was the original Harvey House restaurant.   It still exists, even though it has been many, many years since a train stopped here.   And the original tile work is still in place, it hasn’t been renovated out of existence.

So I looked around some more at the building.   The bit that is visible as one drives by is actually the back of the building.

This is the original front of the building, with the Santa Fe Railroad logo visible in the brickwork.   (Currently the company is BNSF, Burlington, Northern and Santa Fe, which does not sound as cool as the original.   And the BNSF trains use the Denver and Rio Grande tracks nowadays.)

The rest of the building has been modernized, but they have included artwork so that you know it was a train station, in case you can’t recognize this.   This one is in the old waiting room which has been subdivided into meeting spaces.

And this original hard bench and artwork are by what would have been the back entrance.   I have stopped in Raton and Las Vegas, NM looking to photograph these remnants of this chain of dining establishments that shaped the west, so I was truly astounded to find that this had existed the entire time I have lived here.   (Although this latest re-incarnation of the building is only a few years old).

We’re just past Independence Day, celebrated every 4th of July.   Unlike the moveable holidays [MLK Day, President’s Day (formerly known as Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday) etc], this has to be held on it’s original day.  So it is a rare and special holiday.   And like most holidays it’s meaning has morphed into something else over the years.  Now it’s fireworks, barbecue and beer (beer is an important ingredient for most holidays, especially if one has to see the relatives).

When Miss P and I had gone out to get our weekly sausage roll I noticed this patriotic mural on the side of an American Legion post downtown.   It seemed rather fitting for the day.

American Legion is a place for veterans to hang out and drink beer I think, and of course there are plenty of retired military people here in town.

I’m not sure why the Continental Army had to have a fife and drum to fight, but they did.  It’s part of the standard iconography of the Revolutionary War, along with 13 stripes.

And the building has an eagle, our national bird, painted on the front.

Most intriguingly there is this artillery piece out in front of the building.   It is aimed at the church across the street and I am not sure what to make of this.   To the right is the El Paso Club, a private men’s club for old rich guys, one might think it would make a better target.

In a time when we have the phenomenon of pop-up dining, stores and events, it should come as no surprise the we also have instant towns.  Like this one.  To make this town, you start with a prairie.

Clear off the cows and antelope, scrape off the grasses and weeds, then level it a bit, and you are in business.  In the distance are the amenities of the place, a community center, school and a park (for which you pay a monthly fee).

Build a few roads, but not too wide.  That way one can fit more houses in.

We do not build attached houses in America, but they can be built quite close to each other.

Nice windows to keep an eye on the neighbors.

Insert trees into the sandy soil for instant greenery.

All put together by workers from Mexico, and voila: instant town, just add water.

So the thing I love about the Manitou Arcade is that unlike your standard (if there is such a thing) video game palace, is that they feature machines from the earliest machines, to the latest craze (not pictured here, as I don’t relate to them 🙂

Like this early game.   I find the name both hilarious and descriptive, but it now costs a quarter to play.

These are the sort of machines that gave pinball arcades a bad name.  And no, I did not waste my collection of quarters on them.

This vintage machine involves making a clown dance or at least hop about.   It’s not very exciting, so I don’t think it gets much use, but it takes up space to remind us of what the previous generation wasted their money on.

This modern game includes clowns and shooting, a popular combination.

And as an example of a classic pinball machine, what could be more iconic than the Elton John pinball wizard game?   Oh yeah, you have to be an old person to get the reference, but not so old as to have totally forgotten the movie.  😉