Lamy: The Railroad Gateway to Santa Fe

Santa Fe was once a dusty outpost along the Camino Real and at the end of the Santa Fe Trail. That changed in 1880 when the New Mexico Central opened, a 17-mile railroad spur line that connected to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad at the town of Lamy. With the opening of the railroad, tourists began arriving in the City Different.

Lamy was named after Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who led the Santa Fe archdiocese, and who is the real-life inspiration for Jean Marie Latour in Willa Cather’s 1927 novel Death Comes for the Archbishop. He donated the land for the railroad interchange, and thus the town is named for him.

The town of Lamy became a small but bustling railroad hub. The mercantile firm Brown & Manzanares opened a store, which is now the Legal Tender restaurant (it reopened in fall 2021). The Fred Harvey Company opened El Ortiz, a ten-room boutique hotel for railroad travelers. Passenger rail service declined because of the automobile and the Great Depression, and El Ortiz was torn down in 1938. Today, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief train arrives in Lamy daily, where a shuttle bus can carry passengers to Santa Fe.

Legal Tender Restaurant

Lamy is also important for the towering mountain opposite: Cerro Colorado. This provided the ochre sandstone for the St. Francis Cathedral in downtown Santa Fe, hauled to the city up the New Mexico Central railroad. The quarry is clearly visible on the north side of the mountain, like someone took a bite out of Cerro Colorado, and the rubble piles can still be seen.

Cerro Colorado

Willa Cather and her partner Edith Lewis were stuck in Lamy for three days during the summer of 1925 when a thunderstorm blew out the railroad tracks near Trinidad, Colorado. Having lots of time to explore while waiting for the railroad to resume, Cather learned about the quarry on Cerro Colorado - a detail that she included in Death Comes for the Archbishop.

Today, visitors to Santa Fe can explore the route of the New Mexico Central through the Sky Railway excursion train which opened in late 2021 and travels between the Santa Fe Railyard and Lamy. Sky Railway includes a great number of themed excursions such as Cocktails and Rails, the Lamy Brunch Run, and for you astronomers, the Stargazer.

About the author

Garrett Peck is an author, historian, and tour guide in Santa Fe. He is a board member of the Santa Fe Professional Tour Guides. He leads historic tours and excursions in the City Different, including Willa Cather’s Santa Fe, and is writing a book about how Cather wrote her “best book,” Death Comes for the Archbishop. You can reach him at www.garrettpeck.com.

Garrett greets his guests at the Lamy Station