Mountainair

The town's most remarkable building is a blacksmith's. Clem Shaffer, known as Pop, arrived in 1908, and in 1923, tired of wooden buildings burning down, he built the Shaffer Hotel of cast concrete reinforced with scrap iron, then covered it inside and out with his own versions of Indian motifs and set rock mosaics into its fences, garden walls and sidewalks. At Rancho Bonito, south of town, he built a show house in the late 1930s for his Wooden Zoo of carved animals; seven of his root monsters are now in the Museum of International Folk Art.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Mountainair Population 1,170 - Elevation 6,535 Founded in 1902, Mountainair developed as a major center for pinto bean farming in the early 20th century until the drought of the 1940s. The region had been occupied earlier by Tompiro and eastern Tiwa pueblo Indians from prehistoric times through the mid-17th century, when it served as a major center for Span- ish Franciscan missionaries.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument — 6.2 mi
  Three Spanish mission churches raised over Tiwa and Tompiro pueblos east of the Manzano Mountains in the 1600s, each of its own stone, and one never finished.

More markers nearby

• Mountainair — 1.0 mi
• Quarai Ruins — 6.2 mi
• Abó Ruins — 8.7 mi
• Tajique — 17 mi