Some History of Mountainair

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      	July 13, 2000

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Early day Homestead Act of 1889 created an interest for people to come into the central valley
of New Mexico. Along with this were plans for building the A. T. & S.F. Railroad Cutoff to
Belen through the Abo Pass. Mr. John Corbett, a newspaper man in Winfield, Kansas heard of
these plans. He came out in 1901 with his friend Col. E. C. Manning, and they located a town
site beside the proposed railroad route at the summit of Abo Pass.  

Noticing the summer breeze from off the mountains nearby, they named the town Mountainair.
Mountainair was incorporated in the summer of 1903. It was the first incorporated town in the
area, even before Torrance was a county, and nine years before New Mexico became a state.
The incorporates were J. W. Corbett, E. C. Manning, and E. S. Stover, former Governor of
Kansas. 

Due to the financial panic in 1903 in Wall Street there was a delay in building the Belen Cutoff.
Work trains came over the track in 1906 and the first passenger trains in 1907. The depot was
built in 1908 by Mr. Fred Hill, architect for the Santa Fe Railway, who had come with his
family in 1907. Mr. J. J. White, better known as Bill White, was the first station agent. His wife
was a telegraph operator. A post office was established in Mountainair in 1903 with Mrs. G. V.
Hanlon as postmistress. Until 1905, the mail was carried from Albuquerque to Eastview by
horse back, then from there to Mountainair. After a post office was established in Willard, W.
A. Brown carried the mail three times a week to Mountainair until the trains began to run. 

Mountainair never had a plentiful natural water supply. Wells had to be dug deep and some of
the first settlers hauled water from Barranca Canyon, eight miles west. The first well dug for
the town was 300 feet deep and water stood at 100 feet. South of town the water was alkali.
The water in the railroad well was alkaline. It was not long until the steam locomotives gave up
on it and began refilling at Willard for the run to Belen. 

The main town well was in back of Clem (Pop) Shaffer’s blacksmith shop. The townspeople
had covered cisterns and filled them with water delivered from this well in a tank. Other wells
were drilled. Mr. G. H. Whitehead had a well in his wagon yard near Shaffer’s, and he served
the townspeople by hauling water in a tank. Businesses came into being, Churches were
established, schools were built, and Mountainair was growing. Farming was prospering and lots
of pinto beans were being raised. Mountainair at one time boasted of being the Pinto Bean
Capitol of the World. 

In World War II, soldiers over the world saw sacks of beans from Mountainair. This was a
prosperous time, but it was not to remain so. Drought drove farmers out of business. Winds
turned the fields into barren dust. People had to go elsewhere to make a living. The Pinto
Beans quit coming to the elevators and the town became depressed. 

When the young people grew up they had to go elsewhere to make a living and a future for
themselves. This present day we see some of these, who have been away, moving back. They
have retired from their jobs and are wanting to come home. In our travels we have come in
contact with people from many states who will say, "I used to live there ‘back when’ and had
to leave there to make a living. I liked it there and wish we could have stayed."