Recently I took Josefina with me to visit historic Mesilla Plaza in southern New Mexico.
This is somewhere she never actually visited in the course of her books, and had she been a real person born in 1815, she probably never visited in her later life either. It's very far away from Santa Fe; travel in the 19th century was difficult and took days, weeks, and months. But it does have a connection to her stories!
You may remember that Josefina's grandfather, Abuelito, traveled to the Montoya home from Mexico City, bringing with him a surprise special guest. The road he traveled was El Camino Real, a real trade route that stretched 1,600 miles from Mexico City to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Mesilla was a town along that route.
The road and its use shaped so much of the history of this part of the country, that I was eager to make a special trip down there specifically to learn more about it. This plaza was one of several sites Josefina and I visited as part of our learning journey.
Mesilla (pronounced like "may-SEE-yah") is a small town outside of the city of Las Cruces, and about 50 miles north of the border with Mexico. Even before its formal establishment in 1848 and long after, this area was a major stop on the north-south spanning El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (the Royal Road of the Interior Land). That route followed the network of trade paths long traveled by indigenous people, who traded things common in the north, like turquoise, for things more easily obtained closer to the tropics, like seashells and macaw feathers. Spanish settlers arrived in the early 16th century, and used the road to trade similar items, as well as goods that are mentioned in Josefina's books, things that she and her sisters hoped Abuelito was bringing: shoes, farm equipment, lace, and chocolate.
Mesilla's beautiful, colorful historic plaza was once a marketplace similar to other villages and cities of similar size, with adobe buildings encircling a central square where goods and news were traded. Most of the buildings there are very old, and are still in use today as both residences and businesses.
One of those businesses quickly caught my eye....
You bet I booked it across the plaza to visit The Bean at Josefina's! It's a charming little cafe. I got a cold brew coffee (soooo good on a hot afternoon) and admired the interior while I waited for it to be made. I could tell by the thick walls and the wooden beams called vigas and latillas in the ceiling that the structure was very old. The employee told me it was built in the 1800s, but after some searching I think it might be less old than that. It was the home of Josefina Gamboa, whose daughter turned it into a restaurant years later.
This is known as Josefina's Gate. It was the entrance when this was a house. Wooden gates were pretty much standard in adobe homes like these. Even Josefina's home has a big gate like this, but that one opens much wider to make room for trading wagons.
We saw lots of tourists getting their picture taken near this famous landmark, but how many of them are also named Josefina? And how many are this cute and plucky?
And this is Josefina Montoya in Josefina Gamboa's beloved garden, in front of the house.
From the mural: "This building, which dates from 1850, once housed the Capital of Arizona and New Mexico. Later it was the Courthouse in which Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to hang [in April 1881]." He was later held at the jail in the town of Lincoln (which I have also visited with Josefina and will feature in a later post!).
This building is the oldest documented brick building in New Mexico, built in the early 1860's by French immigrant Augustin Maurin. It previously functioned as a general store, residence, town hall, and saloon. Not all at once, of course. It is now an art gallery and gift shop. It was closed for the day by the time I took this picture, so I didn't get to see inside.
The Basilica of San Albino was established fifty years before this slightly more modern church was built in 1906, where once an older adobe church stood.
Some aesthetic pictures not featuring Josefina, but featuring parts of the plaza that show how lovingly the old buildings have been preserved and cared for. It's nice seeing modern things existing alongside these historic structures.
I did go inside one of the buildings facing the plaza, the Taylor-Mesilla Historic Site, which just opened in November. This was once the home of a prominent local family, and it now preserves a huge collection of historic art and furniture. See if you can spot the linens embroidered in the colcha style featured in Josefina's stories! I've mentioned this before, but colcha embroidery is still very much a thriving art form in New Mexico.
