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sept. 24, 2026
R raíces R
tradiciones special edition
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4 8 12 Excerpts
Ayer Y Hoy Four decades of Taos history.
JeffBoyer
Jeff Boyer has spent a lifetime uncovering Northern New Mexico’s past
Selections from Ayer Y Hoy.
istory has a way of hiding in plain sight. It is beneath our feet, in the names we use for roads and places, in buildings we pass every day and in the memories of people who remember what used to be there. Sometimes all it takes is someone willing to ask a question, listen to an old story or write something down before it disappears. This year’s Raíces, part of the Taos News’ annual Tradiciones series, celebrates some of the people who have done exactly that. We meet Taos native and archaeologist Jeff Boyer, who grew up exploring the valley with his father, historian and preservationist Jack Boyer, and went on to spend a career studying the people who lived here centuries before either of them. We also celebrate Ayer y Hoy en Taos, the Taos County Historical Society journal that has spent more than four decades recording the people, places and stories of Northern New Mexico. This year, the Historical Society of New Mexico selected the journal for its 2026 Lansing B. Bloom Award. And we let some of those voices speak for themselves through excerpts that bring back the people, streets and landmarks of an earlier Taos. One of the pleasures of putting together Raíces each year is discovering how much of our history remains close enough to touch — if we remember to look for it. We hope these stories encourage you to look, listen and, most of all, remember.
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Ellen Miller-Goins, magazine editor
raíces
AN IMAGE FROM THE PUBLICATION AYER Y HOY, PAGE 4
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Ayer y Hoy honored for preserving Taos history Four decades of recording the people, places and stories of Northern New Mexico BY ELLEN MILLER-GOINS
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HEN DAVID L. CAFFEY helped launch Ayer y Hoy en Taos in 1985, the idea was modest: Publish a small journal about Taos history a couple of times a year and keep doing it. The accumulation, he hoped, would matter. “If we kept it up and just kept doing it, we would eventually amass a pretty significant amount of published Taos history that could be a resource for years to come,” Caffey recalled. More than four decades after that first issue, the Historical Society of New Mexico has recognized exactly that achievement. The Taos County Historical Society’s Ayer y Hoy en Taos has been selected for the 2026 Lansing B. Bloom Award, named for New Mexico historian, author and editor Lansing B. Bloom. The award recognizes an outstanding publication in New Mexico or Southwest borderlands history by an institution affiliated with the state historical society. In notifying the Taos organization, awards committee chair Dennis Daily wrote that reviewers were impressed by Ayer y Hoy’s “substantive content related to Taos area history” and said publications produced by local and regional historical societies are essential to discovering and disseminating New Mexico history. Taos County Historical Society President Ernestina Cordova sees the award as recognition of years of work. “We’re very happy that we got it. We’re very proud,” she said. “I think it’s one of the best publications in New Mexico for history.” Cordova, who became president in 2009, said the society tries to make room for the histories people bring to it, whether they are established researchers or community members with a story that deserves to be recorded. “People call us and tell us, ‘Can you do a story on this and that?’” she said. “Or sometimes we’re short a story and we’re out looking for somebody — ‘Okay, what do we need? Anybody have a story to share?’”
A JOURNAL TAKES ROOT Caffey arrived in Taos in 1982 to become director of the Harwood. He soon found himself recruited by Sam Buchanan, a seven-time president of the Taos County Historical Society, to help revitalize the organization. The journal grew from a preservation tradition already more than three decades old. The Taos County Historical Society was organized in 1952
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in 2020, was herself a writer whose work ranged from journalism and poetry to spiritual and meditative prose. Caffey wanted the journal to work on two levels. It should give historical society members something interesting to read when each issue arrived, but it should also build an archive that researchers could use long afterward. That has happened. Caffey said he occasionally encounters Ayer y Hoy articles cited in books and research. “I think it’s been what we wanted it to,” he said. “I couldn’t be more proud of the people who have carried that on.”
STORIES THAT MIGHT OTHERWISE DISAPPEAR
THE VERY FIRST EDITION OF AYER Y HOY, SUMMER 1985
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, TAOS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ORGANIZERS HELEN GREENE BLUMENSCHEIN, JACK BOYER AND CORINA SANTISTEVAN
by residents including Helen Greene Blumenschein, Jack Boyer and Corina Santistevan. At its first organizational meeting, members called for collecting historical records and artifacts and identifying historic buildings before more of Taos’ past was lost. After becoming society president, Caffey proposed a periodical devoted specifically to the history of Taos County
and the surrounding region. He edited the inaugural Summer 1985 issue and the issues that followed. That first issue established a pattern the journal would follow for decades. It included articles about historic adobe churches, preservation efforts, local research resources and regional history. Caffey described the new publication as a semiannual journal devoted to Taos County
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and Northern New Mexico history. Even its name came from the community. Caffey remembers asking for suggestions and said the board chose Ayer y Hoy en Taos — Yesterday and Today in Taos — from a suggestion by Judy RomeroOak. “It’s stuck all these years,” he said. Romero-Oak, who died
Across its run, Ayer y Hoy has documented subjects both sweeping and intensely local: historic churches and acequias, the Chili Line railroad, the Taos art colony, traditional agriculture, religious traditions, mining, family histories, old photographs, oral histories and memories of a changing Taos. For Caffey, some of the most valuable pieces were those that came from local people. He points to Corina Santistevan’s “Our Lady of Aranzazu,” published in 1986 after years of research into a mysterious religious image recorded at Taos Pueblo during the Spanish reconquest. “I doubt you’d find that anywhere else,” Caffey said. Santistevan, a charter member of the Taos County Historical Society, devoted much of her life to education and preserving Taos history. She co-authored “Centuries of Hands: An Architectural History of St. Francis of Assisi Church” and later served as project director and oversight historian for “Taos: A Topical History.” The journal has also preserved firsthand recollections from Helen Greene Blumenschein, the society’s first president. Her memories of the early Taos art colony recorded well-known painters not only as historical figures, but as neighbors, friends and family acquaintances. Caffey also remembers an Ayer y Hoy account by Jack Boyer, a survivor of the Bataan Death March, about the 200th Coast Artillery. “It was his story, but it was some very important history,” Caffey said. “I don’t know that you would have seen that anywhere else. And I’m glad we got that down and got it in print, documented.”
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The journal’s readers sometimes challenged it, too. In 1998, longtime Taos teacher, musician and cultural preservationist Jenny Vincent wrote a letter to the editor disputing historical claims about the origins of a Taos County community as inaccurate and undocumented. She argued that historical material should identify its sources or be clearly labeled as fiction. The exchange was a reminder that preserving local history can also mean debating evidence, accuracy and documentation. The journal has also demonstrated that history need not be confined to professional historians. During Kathy Córdova’s years as editor, she assembled a committee that included people with publishing and journalism experience, among them Jerry Padilla and Fayne Lutz of the Taos News, along with Erlinda Gonzales-Berry and Gabriel Romero. Cecilia Trujillo handled graphic work. One issue Córdova remembers especially fondly grew out of a Writing for Publication class she taught. The students’ final assignment was not simply to turn in a paper. Their work had to be published. “Their final exam was to have a published piece in Ayer y Hoy,” she said. The resulting issue was devoted to the students’ work. Another memorable issue documented a historic Taos fashion show using period clothing and local people portraying historical figures. The 2004 issue, “Nuestras Familias — Our Families,” recorded a Martinez Hacienda fashion show featuring 90 historical characters. Córdova is glad Ayer y Hoy preserved it. The reason is simple, she said: “You don’t know about yourself till you know where you came from.”
LEFT TOP: MABEL DODGE LUJAN. LEFT BOTTOM : ERNEST L. BLUMENSCHEIN IN HIS STUDIO. RIGHT COLUMN: COVER ART FROM VARIOUS EDITIONS OF AYER Y HOY
A DECADE-LONG SILENCE The journal itself nearly became history. After the Winter 2004 issue, publication stopped. Córdova stepped away from the editorship as she worked to complete her doctorate, and Ayer y Hoy remained dormant for roughly a decade. Ernestina Cordova had joined the historical society in 2005. As she became more involved and learned more about its work and archives, she began thinking the journal needed to return. “I started researching and I thought, OK, I think we need to start up Ayer y Hoy,” she recalled.
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BATAAN DEATH MARCH
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THE SPRING 2014 EDITION marked the revival. Fittingly, it arrived as the society was celebrating another major publishing accomplishment: “Taos: A Topical History,” a community history that had taken years to bring to completion. That book had just received the same honor Ayer y Hoy is receiving now. In 2014, the Historical Society of New Mexico presented the Lansing B. Bloom Award to “Taos: A Topical History.” Santistevan, the project director, and editor Julia Moore were invited to receive the honor. The award committee praised the book for a range that stretched from geography and archaeology to art, culture, institutional history, economics and ecology. The reborn Ayer y Hoy became another avenue for preserving that work. The 2014 issue noted plans to publish material that had been cut from the history book because of space limitations. At the same time, the historical society was working to preserve the journal itself. A Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area grant enabled the society to digitize its collection of Ayer y Hoy. David Cordova, a graphic artist who had also worked on digitizing the society’s historic recordings, completed the work. The effort was part of a larger archival push that included digitizing about 200 historical recordings. Earlier issues of Ayer y Hoy had encouraged UNMTaos students and other volunteers to transcribe recordings or turn them into articles, converting vulnerable oral histories into durable written records. Soon, he had another job.
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THE OLD COUNTY COURTHOUSE
A small historical society would publish what it could, when it could. Local people would record things they knew. Someone would edit it. Someone would keep the project alive. Over time, individual stories would become an archive. Caffey said sustaining a publication with limited funding and largely volunteer labor is not easy. His message to the editors, writers and volunteers who followed him is equally simple. “I would just tell them thank you,” he said. “I appreciate what you do. I know the amount of work that goes into it and the effort that it takes to keep something like this going.” For a journal called Yesterday and Today in Taos, the award also points toward tomorrow — to the stories still waiting for someone to recognize that they matter, write them down and pass them on.
YESTERDAY AND TODAY, AGAIN By the Fall 2014 issue, David Cordova had become editor of the revived publication and today handles its design and layout as well as much of the work of finding material. Cordova sees the award as affirmation that the journal is reaching people. “I’m glad that it’s being received, and I’m grateful that people are reading what the Taos County Historical Society is trying to convey,” he said. “I am a oneman operation, except for the contributions.” Those contributions, he said, are crucial. Cordova said he looks for material that can introduce readers to something they may never have encountered, whether it comes from a historian, a community member or a subject he discovers himself. “The biggest thing I think about Ayer y Hoy is to provide the members of the Taos County Historical Society with history, written history, to learn about history that maybe they didn’t know about,” he said. Sometimes, he added, something does not seem important “until they are put in front of you and then it becomes important.” That is also why Cordova hopes the Bloom Award will do more than decorate the publication’s résumé. He would like it to bring more contributors and more eyes to the archive. He said interest already seems to be growing. “People are looking forward to the next publication,” he said. “My part on that is to try to not let them down” — to give readers something they can enjoy and perhaps learn from. For Caffey, who now lives in Lubbock, Texas, the award brings the story back to the simple idea behind that first issue in 1985.
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in their own words
Ayer y Hoy excerpts recall the people, places and landmarks of a changing Taos Ayer y Hoy excerpts recall the people, places BY ELLEN MILLER-GOINS and landmarks of a changing Taos
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or more than four decades, Ayer y Hoy en Taos has preserved the kind of history that can disappear if no one writes it down: the people who once animated Taos streets, the businesses everyone used as landmarks, the small details of childhood and the firsthand memories of events that reached far beyond Northern New Mexico. The journal, published by the Taos County Historical Society, has been selected for the Historical Society of New Mexico’s 2026 Lansing B. Bloom Award. The excerpts below offer a sampling of what its archive holds, in the voices of the people who remembered it.
THE PEOPLE MEMORY LEAVES BEHIND John B. Quintana looked back to the Taos of the 1920s and 1930s, deliberately turning his attention away from the politicians, merchants, professionals and artists whose lives were already part of the written record. From “Echoes of the Past,” by John B. Quintana, Winter 1994, Issue No. 18. Our legendary Llorona not only cries for the soul of her lost child, she also cries for the lost memories of a certain group of people from Taos. Like the Llorona’s child that was engulfed by the water
that took its life, so has apathy engulfed the memory of these people that were the heart and soul of this community during the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties. The culture and customs of these people were the ingredients that bewitched the artist and the affluent to remain here once they were drawn into this magic web. Up to this time, three existing cultures intermingled freely religiously, socially, culturally and economically. For all intents and purposes, they were one, el Indio, el Chicano and the Gringo. Once people from other parts of the country started coming and settling here, a change began to take place, although slowly at the beginning. The live and let live philosophy of the natives turned out to be the quicksand that eventually sucked them into oblivion. Now, as the sun of life sinks deeper and deeper into the horizon of history, not many of us are left to resurrect these people from the depth of forgetfulness and display them in the gallery of history. Many of these people were entrepreneurs, starting with Doña Soledad, a heavy set, bronze complexioned woman with a very gentle nature. This wonderful lady was one of the first to put into practice the “Bed and Breakfast” industry. She was the owner of a large house consisting of two apartments and
A WALK DOWN RATON ROAD
RATON ROAD (KIT CARSON ROAD)
three rooms for overnight stays just a city block from the town square. She also served three daily meals. Travel in those days was difficult - horseback, horse and buggy and horse drawn wagon. Next door to Doña Soledad, the Welch brothers had their blacksmith shop. Epifanio and Henry were bachelors. They were very good at their profession and were usually swamped with work, repairing buggy and wagon wheels, plows, horseshoeing and other work. They would tolerate three or four of us kids watching them at work for a while, and when they would tire of us, they would pretend to get mad at one another and start swinging sledge hammers at each other. Then, we would scatter to the four winds. Living poetry was portrayed
WINTER 1994 EDITION OF AYER Y HOY
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by a man named Alberto, most commonly known by his nickname “Alberto Ronco.” Every morning of the week, this man could be seen driving his woodladen donkeys from Cañon into town to sell his wood. He was never known to carry his load back home. In the evening, he would be seen driving his burros home whistling a happy tune. Don Toribio, a small and very congenial gentleman, made his living with his team and wagon hauling trash for different people who knew him and were glad to employ him. This man knew strangers, whomever he met, he would greet with a good day asking, “How is your father, your mother, your brothers, your sisters?” This man was living proof to Will Rogers’ saying, “I never met a man I didn’t like.”
WINTER 2022 EDITION OF AYER Y HOY
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Nearly three decades later, Sadie Ortiz Knight used the same tool: memory. Her tour of what is now Kit Carson Road turns a familiar street back into the neighborhood she knew as a girl. From “Kit Carson Road (Formerly Raton Road): Memories of the 30s and 40s,” by Sadie Ortiz Knight, completed by Benton Bond, Winter 2022, Issue No. 53. I grew up half a mile from Taos Plaza on what was then known as Raton Road. Our home was just one block inside the boundary of the school bus route, so my brothers and I walked to school, about a mile or so from our home. The homes and businesses along the road became very familiar to me and many of the people I saw on my walks back and forth became friends. I am going to give you a tour of this road from one block east of my home to the east corner of Taos Plaza as I remember it then. Beginning with the home of one of Taos’ famous artists, E. Martin Hennings, his wife Helen, and daughter, also named Helen. Their home was on the south side of the road, at the edge of the populated mile from town. They had the only swimming pool that I knew of at that time, located in their front yard. Helen was younger than I, so she was not one of my classmates. Mrs. Hennings did not drive and I remember seeing her walking to town, a tall lady who always wore a hat. Across the street was the large two-story adobe home of Miles Boyer and his family. The Boyers had one son, Jack, and two daughters, Alice and Betty. Jack and his father had a grocery store and market at the northeast corner of the plaza and as a little girl I remember Jack walking to work early in the morning, whistling as he strode along. He whistled beautifully and I enjoyed listening to him. Jack was subsequently a member of the 200th Coast Artillery that was captured by the Japanese during World War II and a survivor of the Bataan Death March. Later on, when Jack was gone, I used to babysit for his wife Mildred, taking care of their little boy, Ronnie. Sometimes Mr. Boyer would get home first, and he would walk me home. I was about 14 years old. I earned 50 cents an hour and was delighted to have my own money to spend. On the other side of the road
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was the beautiful home of Mary L. Dolan and her son, Pete. She was the widow of Peter Dolan, a merchant in town who owned a store at one time on the corner where Kay Decker’s shop, Creative Expressions, is located. Mrs. Dolan was a very devout Catholic. Her daughter Michelle, was a member of the Sisters of Loretto, and her son Pete, was an altar boy and then a priest’s assistant all of his life at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in town. As a little girl I remember going to visit Mrs. Dolan. She was always very friendly and kind. She always had cookies and milk for me. I loved to go to her house because it was so beautifully furnished. She was much more wealthy than most of the people I knew and her beautifully kept home with all its lovely furnishings was fascinating to a little girl.
COVER OF 'WHERE THINGS USETA BE', BY ERIC "BEAR" ALBRECHT
WHERE THINGS USETA BE By 2018, Eric “Bear” Albrecht’s list of vanished and relocated Taos landmarks had itself become a historical document. Today it has acquired yet another layer: Many of the “now” businesses and landmarks used to explain where older places once stood are themselves gone. Reading the list is a reminder of just how quickly the familiar geography of a town can become history. From “Where Things Useta Be In Taos,” by Eric “Bear” Albrecht, with updates and additions by Dave Cordova, Spring 2018, Issue No. 44. Time is fleeting. Measured in seconds, minutes, hours or even millennia, time brings about many changes, changes that Eric Bear Albrecht tried to document for Taos. Bear, as he was known, was a transplanted Taoseño who lived and worked in Taos in the ’70s and ’80s before moving south to the Socorro area. During his time here, he became interested in documenting the comings and goings of businesses and public places in and around the Town of Taos because directions were being given with references to defunct businesses. That is why he created the list of “Where Things Useta Be In Taos.” Although not a complete list, it offers an opportunity to jog our memories to remind us those by-gone days. The list itself is now a bit dated with the passage of a little more than 30 years, but it is relevant enough to, at least, provide a basis for this article and any future additions to it. There is a lot of history in Bear’s list and, being fluid, it is ever changing. Black Hole of Cantu has had many occupants since its construction in the mid to late-sixties. Most formidable were Taos’ first 7-to-11 owned by Juan Martinez, the Department of Motor Vehicles, Chuck’s Gun Shop, ABC Lock, Casa de Musica, a frozen yogurt shop and several boutiques and hair salons. The shops’ roof was Cantu Furniture’s roof-top parking.
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LA COCINA WAS A POPULAR DINING STOP ON THE TAOS PLAZA
Blinking Light, The was a longtime landmark at the junction of Ski Valley Road and NM150. It is now shrouded in mystery - when the intersection was realigned and full signals put up, the blinking light was taken down, laid to rest by the side of the road, and captured by UFOs or local nostalgists or whatever. Bowling Alley was located in what is now El Taoseño Restaurant. Once a popular entertainment venue known as the Coronado Ballroom, which was where Taoseños saw such notable celebrities as Fats Domino and Glen Campbell. The venue closed in the mid-60s and was bought by professional bowler
Floyd Garcia and turned the ballroom into a multi-lane bowling alley. When the lanes became warped, the bowling alley was torn out and the building became Floyd’s Lounge. Bus Station: From the earliest recollections, the bus station was located in the building that is now a Thai restaurant across from McDonald’s. It moved around a bit and is now just a memory because there is no longer bus service to Taos. Coyote Cafe was in the building now occupied by Pioneer Investment Co., or maybe it was in the other building in the front. They used paper plates. Don Pablo Gomez Restaurant
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became Lambert’s and is now vacant. In between times it was a barbecue place that was pretty good but they used paper plates and didn’t exude whatever it might be to justify the prices. Gilberto’s Restaurant was where the Chinese place is across from McDonald’s. Had some really delicious green chile burritos. They were so good I have to wonder if he used MSG. Jack Denver’s Motel was across from the last home of Amigos Natural Foods (“the Coop”). Funky place, run by a real character - for instance he would always pay his electric bill at the last possible moment before getting cut off.
McCrory’s was a discount store in Cruz Alta Plaza; previously T G & Y, later Bargain Time. All three brands were owned by the same corporation. None prospered. Their problem was probably the fact that they always bought bargains for the store and not for the customer. Ramona’s might have flown in another town, but aqui en Taos? Nope, didn’t make it. It was a night club, across the road from Centinel Bank. Now occupied by SuperSave Supermarket. Read the complete archive: taoscountyhistoricalsociety. org/ayeryhoy.html
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WHAT HAPPENED AFTER JACK LEFT TAOS? Knight’s memory of Jack Boyer walking toward the Plaza whistling is especially striking beside Boyer’s own account in an earlier issue of Ayer y Hoy. In 1988, he told readers what happened after he left Taos with the 200th Coast Artillery. From “Taos and the Bataan Campaign,” by Jack Boyer, Fall 1988, Issue No. 7. It is an honor to tell the story of the men of the 200th Coast Artillery (Antiaircraft), who fought in defense of the Philippines and were Japanese Prisoners of War during World War II. It is also difficult to recall the horrors — the ill treatment by the Japanese guards, the deaths of so many friends, the dysentery, diarrhea, malaria, dengue, pellagra, the wet and dry beriberi that we suffered without any medical treatment; the starvation diet and always being hungry; the cold, miserable weather in Japan without adequate clothing, blankets, or fuel; the slave work demanded by the Japanese; the “Bataan Death March,” and later the “Hell Ships” to Japan; the lack of communication with our families back home; and the uncertainty of trying to live just one day at a time. The story may not be pretty, but it is true. I joined in April 1938, as a buck Private in Troop K of the 111th, earning $1.00 per drill night or $15.00 per month. The U.S. was in a deep depression, so this seemed a lot of money, and I hoped that with the training and experience, I could advance. The new Battery “H” in Taos was to be an automatic weapons battery, using the latest 37 millimeter guns. Though we lost our cavalry horses in 1938, it was September 1941 before we received all of our guns, trucks and equipment.
WINTER 1994 EDITION OF AYER Y HOY
ILLUSTRATION BY TAOS ARTIST TED EGRI FOR THE SHIPBOARD EDITION OF COLLIER'S MAGAZINE. 1944
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Home beneath his feet BY ELLEN MILLER-GOINS
Jeff Boyer has spent a lifetime uncovering Northern New Mexico’s past
JEFF BOYER (LEANING ON SHOVEL) “SUPERVISING” THE CREW AT THE VIGIL HOUSE EXCAVATIONS NEAR POJOAQUE, 1997. STANDING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: RICK MONTOYA (HIS FIRST FIELD JOB), BOYER, SAM
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EFF BOYER’S EARLIEST memory is of being 2 years old, riding in a red wagon as his cousin, Barton Bond, pulled him around the Boyer property on Kit Carson Road. Later, Boyer pulled his younger sister, Sherry, in what may have been the same wagon to Doc James’ little store for candy. Eventually he was old enough to walk by himself to afternoon movies at the Plaza Theater. Those are ordinary childhood memories, Boyer said, but they unfolded in a family where the past was always close at hand. His father, Jack Boyer, became one of Taos’ best-known histo-
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SWEEZY AND TESS FRESQUEZ “GUADALUPE LUPE MARTINEZ (KNEELING) WAS, APPARENTLY, THE ONLY ONE ACTUALLY DIGGING,” BOYER SAID. / COURTESY PHOTO
rians and preservationists, helping establish the Taos County Historical Society and spending decades with the Kit Carson Memorial Foundation, now Taos Historic Museums. In the 1960s, Jack bought a 1964 International Scout so the family could spend weekends following old roads and trails through the mountains, sagebrush, rivers and arroyos. Artist and amateur archaeologist Helen Greene Blumenschein sometimes joined them. For young Jeff, history was not something sealed behind glass. It was something underfoot. “I grew up with a father who was a historian and historic
preservationist with a vision, still unsurpassed, for preserving and telling the history of the Taos Valley,” Boyer said. “I have often said that I had little choice but to become a something to do with history.” He did not immediately plan on becoming an archaeologist. Boyer loved drawing and skiing and wanted to be an artist. His father, who had grown up watching members of the early Taos art colony struggle during the Depression, refused to pay for college so his son could become what he considered another starving artist. He studied anthropology and fine arts at Northern Arizona
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University before transferring to the University of Arizona, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology in 1977. He later completed a master’s degree in anthropology at the University of New Mexico in 1983. “My father would not send me to college to become a starving artist. Apparently, though, it was okay to be a starving archaeologist,” Boyer joked. “But when I got to Northern Arizona University, I declared a fine arts minor in addition to an anthropology major specializing in archaeology. I have always been a bit of a contrarian. Dad said I should be declared a history minor. He was right. I can
say that now.” Boyer returned to Taos while finishing graduate school and developed an archaeology research program for the Kit Carson Memorial Foundation. From there he went on to work for Carson National Forest and the Museum of New Mexico’s Office of Archaeological Studies, where much of his career was devoted to the Northern Rio Grande. Some of his most important work asked a deceptively simple question: When does a collection of households become a community? Archaeologists had often looked for aggregated villages or recognizable
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ceremonial structures as evidence of community organization. Boyer’s research suggested that social communities could exist before people built their homes side by side. At early Pueblo sites, including locations studied along Blueberry Hill Road and in the Tewa Basin, he examined evidence that some places were used repeatedly by people from more than one household. In a 2002 paper, “It Takes a Village to Have a Plaza,” he argued that one such site may have functioned as an early central gathering place - evidence of community integration among people who still lived in relatively scattered farmsteads. His work on the Valdez phase also helped refine the chronology of early Pueblo settlement in the Taos area. A 1997 study placed the phase at roughly A.D. 1050 to 1225, with increased immigration, population growth and movement during the 12th century and a shift toward small, aggregated villages in the early 1200s. The larger point, Boyer has said, is that communities did not simply appear when people moved next door to one another. The relationships came first. Boyer’s work ranged well beyond early Pueblo settlement. Near Abiquiu, he directed excavations at La Puente, a site with deposits dating from the Spanish Colonial through American Territorial periods. In later research, he examined metal projectile points from a historic Hispanic rancho near Cuyamungue and their connections to Native manufacture, trade and interaction. Another project, with bioarchaeologist Catrina Banks Whitley, investigated whether naturally occurring radiation may have affected the health of Ancestral Pueblo people in the Taos Valley. After skeletal evidence of cancer was identified in four individuals among 82 analyzed burials, the researchers tested radon levels in archaeological settings. A later study found high radon concentrations in a reconstructed pit structure, raising questions about chronic environmental exposure while stopping short of claiming radon caused the cancers. For Boyer, that kind of caution is essential. Archaeology, he said, is not a hunt for spectacular artifacts. Fieldwork is manual labor, followed by long hours of examining artifacts, entering data, analyzing patterns and writing reports. Discoveries matter, but patterns matter more. He also remains quick to credit the people around him. “I have been blessed to know and work with some really cool people of all stripes and colors who have challenged me to be better and more thoughtful about what I see and learn,” he said. “I’m neither stupid nor arrogant enough to think that anything I know, I learned all on my own.” Boyer has not worked in the field since 2019, but he is not simply retired. He now works remotely with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, assisting archaeologists and project planners across the country. Northern New Mexico, and especially the Taos Valley, remain central to the way he thinks about the past. “I can only hope that my work has built on the foundations of archaeologists and historians before me,” he said, and that it is sturdy enough for others to build on. The lesson reaches back to his father and to those childhood drives through the valley: “If we don’t know where we came from, we can’t know where we’re going.”’
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JEFF BOYER AND LAUREL WALLACE EXCAVATING IN THE MANZANO MOUNTAINS FOOTHILLS, CA, 1981 / COURTESY PHOTO
BLUEBERRY HILL ROAD CREW, 1996. JEFF BOYER IS STANDING ON RIGHT WEARING WHITE CAP. (NOT THE KNEELING FIGURE ON THE FAR RIGHT; THAT’S SAM SWEEZY.) / COURTESY PHOTO
JEFF BOYER EXCAVATES A TEST PIT FOR RADON TEST KIT, RIO GRANDE DEL RANCHO VALLEY, 2010. / COURTESY PHOTO
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A LIVING TRADITION
“A new day begins not only for the American Indian, but for all Americans in this country.” — Cacique Romero, 1970. Upon the Return of Blue Lake
In December 1970, former President Richard Nixon and Congress authorized the return of Blue Lake and 48,000 acres of sacred land to Taos Pueblo. The decades-long efforts of Taos Pueblo representatives helped restore Pueblo lands and protect the continuation of millennia-old traditions. Perhaps equally important, the return of Blue Lake established a precedent for Native American self-determination.
From left, 2026 Taos Pueblo Lieutenant Gov. Delber I. Chisholm, Tribal Secretary Cameron Martinez Sr., and Governor Michael E. Martinez. Photo: Rick Romancito for the Taos News
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