Modest mouse: A bevy of rodents inspired the name of this New Mexico bordertown

A Spanish mouse takes center stage in this month’s column as we head north to the Colorado border where the Rocky Mountains loom, the winter hits hard and the sculpting of the American Southwest unfolded.

That place is the town of Raton and where it sits today got its start as a settlement called Willow Springs, but the railroad changed that. We’ll get to how exactly a little later because the name Raton was already being used in the area years before the city of Raton was founded in 1880, and it’s from that usage that the small community took its name.

Before there was a town, there was Raton Mountain that sits on the border between New Mexico and Colorado, and the treacherous Raton Pass through it that provided a lifeline for the American trade industry.

Raton the city, the mountain and the pass all lie within Colfax County. The name means mouse in Spanish and was first given to the mountain because it was inhabited by many small rodents, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The Raton Pass came next. It was part of the 19th century, 1,200-mile Santa Fe Trail that connected Franklin, Missouri, to Santa Fe, according to the National Park Service. The pass cuts through a rugged area of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and became one of the most important segments of the trail because it allowed traders to access the western territory in wagons.

According to NPS, the pass also played a critical role in Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny’s conquest of Santa Fe during the Mexican-American War and the eventual annexation of New Mexico by the United States in 1846. Kearny used the Raton Pass to reach Santa Fe during the war instead of taking the easier, drier Cimarron Route. When his troops emerged, they found the valley on the New Mexico side of the mountain void of Mexican soldiers and were able to enact a swift takeover of Santa Fe.

Trapper Richens Lacy Wootton was one of the first Santa Fe Trail travelers to turn access to the epic trade route into an economic opportunity. In 1865, Wootton, who had lost two fingers from one hand in a boyhood accident, set up a house and tollgate on the Colorado side of the pass and began charging a fee to pass through. Mules were $1, wagons with four fewer mules were $1.50, and anything bigger than that cost $2. Nobody but American Indians passed through for free. On foot? That’ll cost 10 cents and 25 cents if riding a horse. Loose animals got through at the bargain rate of 5 cents.

Modest mouse: A bevy of rodents inspired the name of this New Mexico bordertown

The arrival of the railroad to the area would put an end to his business and would lead to the eventual creation of the city of Raton. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad laid tracks over the pass in 1879 and the only thing nearby then was Willow Springs Ranch on the west bank of Willow Creek, so named for two large willow trees watered by the creek. The ranch had its own post office, tavern and general store, and was a place traders would stop to rest and exchange their wares.

When the railroad stretched further south, people came with it to Willow Springs, especially from the town of Otero, which was a settlement at the foot of Raton Pass, according to Robert Julyan’s book, “The Place Names of New Mexico.”

Because Willow Springs had better access to water than Otero, Julyan said it was there that the railroad’s chief engineer selected for the permanent site of the division headquarters. The name Raton eventually replaced Willow Springs as the name of the burgeoning community.

“The name Willow Springs was not forgotten, however,” Julyan writes. “In 1986, a local sign painter proposed changing the town’s name back to Willow Spring, saying it would give the town a better image than a (Spanish mouse).”

Townsfolk rejected the idea and the Chamber of Commerce unanimously voted against it, according to Julyan. The town currently has a population of just over 6,000, according to 2021 U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Meanwhile, although today’s travelers traverse Raton Pass mostly by automobile along a paved road, it’s still fraught with hazards. The peak of the pass sits at approximately 7,800 feet above sea level and is the borderlands between the two states. Winter months bring snow, ice, extreme winds, poor visibility and freezing temperatures. It’s not unusual for a winter storm to cause the road’s closure. As a cold front moved through New Mexico last week, Raton saw some of the coldest overnight temperatures in the state, dipping into the mid-teens but feeling closer to single digits.

The railroad that once climbed to the summit through a series of switchbacks now passes through the mountain via a tunnel. New Mexico used convict labor to build a new highway near Raton Pass in 1908 and 1909, according to the University of New Mexico’s Santa Fe Historic Trails series. In 1926, the road officially became U.S. 85, and in 1942 it was realigned to the old Wootton route along the Santa Fe Trail. Today, it is part of Interstate 25.

The railroad had offered Wootton $50,000 for his road, but instead he asked for a lifetime of rail passes and groceries for him and his wife. The railroad even named one of its biggest locomotives “Uncle Dick” in honor of Wootton, according to an Aug. 17, 1921, article in The Anderson Herald, from Anderson, Indiana. Wootton, according to the article, “always watched for its appearance and smiled proudly as it thundered to the top of the pass with its heavy load.”

His 1893 death in Trinidad, Colorado, was marked by newspapers across the country. The Kansas City Times ran his obituary in its Sept. 24 issue, calling him “one of the last of the old-time frontiersmen” and comrade of Kit Carson.

“Through the Raton Pass, on the mountains dividing Colorado from New Mexico, ‘Uncle Dick,’ as he was called, built a turnpike, over which for many years the great traffic of the Santa Fe Trail passed.”

Curious about how a town, street or building got its name? Email columnist Elaine Briseño at ebriseno@abqjournal.com as she continues the monthly journey in “What’s in a Name?”