Obituaries C-2 Police notes C-3 Celebrations C-6 Neighbors C-7
SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013 THE NEW MEXICAN
LOCAL NEWS
Following her heart: Artist, world traveler says nothing compares to Santa Fe. Neighbors, C-7
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Bandelier to open popular archaeological site Alcove House closed since April because of kiva’s structural concerns The Associated Press
LOS ALAMOS — One of the most popular sites at Bandelier National Monument is set to reopen Monday. Accessible only by a series of wooden ladders and steep stone steps, the kiva at the Alcove House site is located at the edge of a niche some 14 stories above the canyon floor.
The site was closed in April due to concerns over structural stability of the kiva. The walls of the structure had loosened and there were other signs of severe erosion. Although the kiva itself will remain closed, park officials said visitors will be able to climb the ladders that lead to the site and take in the view from 140 feet above the canyon floor. “We will be glad to have Alcove House open again for visitors to enjoy, especially knowing that a serious safety hazard has been dealt with,” Bandelier Superintendent Jason Lott said. Lott said there’s still more work to be
done to restore the kiva. The repair crew has successfully removed the kiva’s buttressing wall, revealing surfaces that had not been seen in 100 years. With the outer layer removed, the workers saw a combination of the original ancestral pueblo and stabilization work that was done more than a century ago. The crew preserved what was there and re-mortared spaces where needed. Park officials say visitors will be able to see the walls with the current repairs and mortar that has been in place since
Although the Alcove House kiva itself will remain closed, Bandelier National Monument officials said visitors will be able to climb the ladders that lead to the site and take in the view from 140 feet above the canyon floor. NEW MEXICAN FILE PHOTO
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Lecture explores de Vargas’ families
Audubon Center celebration offers rare peek at Randall Davey’s studio
Spanish conquistador first came to New World to collect inheritance By Tom Sharpe The New Mexican
Edward James Sexton explores the Randall Davey House during a 30th-anniversary celebration Saturday at the Audubon Center. Tours of the home are offered from 2 to 3 p.m. every Friday. PHOTOS BY JANE PHILLIPS/THE NEW MEXICAN
A sanctuary for art, birds By Tom Sharpe The New Mexican
S
oon after Randall Davey arrived in Santa Fe in the summer of 1919, at the age of 32, he bought an old mill that was built by the Army in Santa Fe Canyon in the 1850s to turn out lumber for Fort Marcy. He soon expanded the mill into a twostory, Territorial style home and studio adorned with his formal oil portraits, provocative nudes, landscapes and scenes of polo matches and horse races. On Saturday afternoon, during a 30th-anniversary celebration for the Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary, members of the public got a rare peek at Davey’s studio on Upper Canyon Road, where his books, art, supplies and knickknacks remain intact. Davey was a member of New York City’s Ashcan School of art, and his work had appeared in the seminal 1913 Armory Show there. He also was a draft dodger who sat out World War I in Cuba. Although his reputation never approached that of some of his fellow artists who came to New Mexico in the early 20th century, Davey continued to work in his Santa Fe home, in between teaching gigs in Chicago, Kansas City, Mo., and New York. After he died in 1964 in an
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In brief Eldorado cites former city councilor It’s not just chickens causing problems in Eldorado. The homeowners association in the community southeast of Santa Fe is also fighting the presence of unsightly vehicles on property in the subdivision. The Eldorado Community Improvement Association this week cited former Santa Fe city councilor Clarence “Porky” Lithgow for keeping an inoperable pickup and utility trailer at his residence at 5 Azul Way.
Don Diego de Vargas, the Spanish conquistador who peacefully reconquered Northern New Mexico from the Pueblo Indians, had one family in Spain and another in Mexico, according to State Historian Rick Hendricks. Hendricks will speak on “Diego de Vargas’ Two Families” at the annual Santa Fe Fiesta Lecture at 6 p.m. Sept. 4 in the auditorium of the New Mexico History Museum. In a recent telephone interview, Hendricks said the information about the two families came from his 17 years of research for The University of New Mexico’s Vargas Project. Don Diego de Vargas married Doña Beatriz Pimentel de Prado in the spring of 1664 in Torrelaguna, Spain, some 30 miles north of Madrid. He had five children with her. Then his father, Don Alonso de Vargas, died in Guatemala, leaving a sizable estate to his only surviving son, who was heavily in debt. De Vargas set sail for Guatemala to collect his inheritance and soon was caught up in the efforts of the Spanish crown to colonize the New World. He was in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 1674 when his wife died unexpectedly back in Spain and his children were put into the care of his brother-in-law. By 1679 or 1680, the year the Pueblo people drove the Spanish from New Mexico, de Vargas was living in Mexico City with a woman identified as Nicolasa Rincón. Although they never married, they had three children together. “We don’t really know that much about her,” Hendricks said of Rincón. “You would assume she was either Spanish or mestizo. It is very unlikely she would have been an Indian because those children that were born of that [union] were able to rise pretty quickly in society. “The reason [de Vargas] gave for not remarrying was that it was his hope he would return to Spain and marry someone of his station, his status. … His motivation for coming to the New World was to settle his father’s estate. He didn’t come with the idea of staying permanently. He had anticipated that he would go back.” But things became complicated for de
From left, Kaden Matsuda, 6, Ria Baker, 7, Aila Carr, 9, and Lily Carr, 7, play with mud during a lesson about making adobe bricks during Saturday’s celebration.
Covenants for the unincorporated village that got started south of Santa Fe some 40 years ago require homeowners to have such vehicles “obscured by screening … to minimize their visual impact on the surrounding neighborhoods.” The application to compel arbitration was filed in state District Court on Wednesday by John P. Hayes of the Cassutt, Hays & Friedman firm on behalf of the association. It asks a judge to enter an order compelling Lithgow to arbitrate his dispute with the association, to select an arbitrator from an approved list within seven days of the order and to award attorneys’ fees and court costs to the association.
Section editor: Howard Houghton, 986-3015, hhoughton@sfnewmexican.com
Nine more charged in Navajo probe FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The list of Navajo Nation officials charged in an investigation of discretionary fund spending is growing. Prosecutors announced this week that they’ve filed charges against nine former tribal lawmakers, bringing the total number of people facing criminal charges to 12. Three others are accused of ethics violations. Prosecutors say the lawmakers conspired with one another to enrich their own families with money intended for Navajos in need. The 72 criminal complaints filed against
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them allege they funneled more than $300,000 to family members through 580 separate payments. Each faces conspiracy and bribery charges. The Associated Press called six of the defendants or their attorneys Friday. One hadn’t seen the documents, and the others didn’t return messages. Phone listings could not be found for the other two defendants.
Tribe blasts potential drilling near Chaco FARMINGTON — The Hopi Tribe is blasting the idea of potential drilling near the Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
The Farmington Daily Times reported that the Hopi Tribe has submitted critical comments to the Bureau of Land Management about the possibility of drilling by the World Heritage Site. Oil and gas firms have nominated 38 oil and gas leases, totaling 19,103 acres, for a January lease sale. The BLM is evaluating the parcels for the lease sale, and it is not yet clear which parcels will be included or if some will be withdrawn. One of the parcels is less than a quarter-mile from the park’s boundary. The tribe in Arizona traces some of its clans to the ancestral Puebloans who inhabited areas in and around the park a millennium ago. Staff and wire reports
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