A natural spring north of Route 66 in Tijeras, New Mexico, was just designated to the National Register of Historic Places.
Whitcomb Springs, also known as Carlito Springs, was added to the register effective Oct. 7, according to a weekly email Friday from the National Park Service.
The springs sit at 82 Carlito Springs Road (map here), about a half-mile north of Route 66 in Tijeras in the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque.
The East Mountain Directory a few years ago published a history of the springs:
Halfway up the south slope of the Sandia Mountains, opposite Tijeras, the I-40 traveler might notice a shock of deciduous trees — a striking anomaly among the evergreens. Fiery gold in autumn, bright green in spring and summer, this leafy mass is the heart of Carlito Springs, a 179-acre oasis whose lush charm served from the late 1800s through the 1940s as a lure for those seeking recreation and respite. Now, as Bernalillo County open space, Carlito Springs is beginning to host visitors once again.
Architect Baker Morrow, whose firm conducted an assessment of Carlito Springs, recently called it “one of the most amazing landscapes in the Southwest,” and “unique” because of its slope. From the natural spring at the top to the orchards with hundreds of fruit trees below, elevation drops 750 feet. A terraced cluster consisting of a main house, cabins, and ponds sits between the spring and orchards, all situated just above historic Route 66. […]
Civil War veteran Horace G. Whitcomb discovered the spot while looking for gold and homesteaded it in 1882; the Keleher brothers later brought visitors up from Albuquerque in six-horse stagecoaches for day trips; and Carl Magee bought the property in 1930 for his tubercular wife, naming it Carlito after their son, Carl Jr., who had died in a plane crash while training to go to war.
Carlito’s history as a resort starts with Whitcomb, who started off living in a tent while he cultivated the land and built irrigation canals. According to the county assessment, by 1891 he had built six dwellings, a stable, more than a mile of pole fence, and three-quarters of a mile of graded road. He also planted 30 fruit trees and 80 grape vines and opened the property to visitors as Whitcomb Camp. […]
In 1898 Jessie Keleher took over the camp and changed its name to Whitcomb Springs. Her two sons shuttled visitors to the site by stagecoach, advertising a full day’s outing at $1.50 a head.
A boy’s school and sanatorium for patients seeking clear, cool mountain air were among the property’s uses before its purchase by Magee, who advertised “Cabins with Meals” in 1932. He also entertained visitors in his grand dining room and tea veranda and supplied fresh fish to local residents and restaurants from his famous trout ponds. […]
In 1946 Magee’s daughter Gertrude inherited Carlito Springs and lived there with her husband, Sandia Lab’s atomic scientist Tony Grenko. One of their daughters, Junile Willingham, told this writer in 2001 that her father planted a quarter-million tulip bulbs along the property’s mountain paths and added English black walnut, nectarines, cherries, wild plums, almonds, apricot, and fig to the orchards. “Every once in a while a tree will produce an apple as big as a pie itself,” she said. Both her parents were master gardeners who won countless ribbons at the New Mexico State Fair. In her grandfather Magee’s time, Willingham said, thousands of trout were fed breadcrumbs, horsemeat, and beans — “quite a project,” she noted.
Bernalillo County bought the site in 2000 and has shored up some of the walls and cleared vegetation and debris. The county states it wants to open the site so it can accommodate more and a wider range of visitors.
The main tasks include constructing a potable water system, a fire suppression, a wastewater disposal system, rehabilitate caretaker’s facility, develop parking area and rehabilitate small scale features to include retaining walls, fountains, ponds, steps and gardens as necessary.
It is hoped that improvements to the Main House can be made during the Phase II site improvements, but if this is not possible, Main House and Cabin improvements will be made in Phase III.
The county produced this video about the springs:
Alas, the springs are closed while the county is working on shoring up the facility and the surrounding forestland’s health.
(Image of the cabins at Carlito Springs in Tijeras, New Mexico, via Matt G. via Yelp; century-old postcard image of Whitcomb Springs via 66Postcards.com)