Relic outside Casa Grande Trading Post, Cerrillos, New Mexico
– Click on the image to enlarge or purchase –
The Casa Grande Trading Post is, quite often, a visitor’s first stop when arriving in Los Cerrillos. As noted in the first post about the ghost town when we learned about the history of the town and took a look at The Delallo-Simoni Building, over 200 people still call Cerrillos their home. Two of these people are Todd & Patricia Brown, proprietors of the Casa Grande Trading Post. Not only is this an interesting store with many fascinating items for sale which Todd and Patricia are more than happy to explain the story behind, the 6 room hacienda also contains the Cerrillos Turquoise Mining Museum. There is a Petting Zoo for the children outside, too.
The Casa Grande Trading Post is not one of the original building in the ghost town. Todd & Patricia Brown began the construction of this living hacienda in 1975, and it has grown, along with their six children, to become the 28-room structure you see today. Sixty-five thousand adobe bricks, most of them molded and dried in the middle of Waldo Street, went into its construction. The Palace Hotel covered part of the ground now occupied by the Casa Grande, and a masonry wall constructed from the remains of the old Palace may be seen today on the Third Street side.
Relic outside Casa Grande Trading Post, Cerrillos, New Mexico
– Click on the image to enlarge or purchase –
Unlike when we visited The Delallo-Simoni Building, the What Not Shop, or the Barardinelli House, the Casa Grande Trading Post did not feel like it was in a ghost town. Outside the store were numerous cars from the other visitors which, no matter how long we spent in the town, and how many times we returned to the trading post, never seemed to want to leave. Mind you, Todd and Patricia are wonderful story tellers so we could easily understand why these other visitors did not want to leave. This is why I do not have any images of the actual trading post to show you – a bright red and a bright silver car in the foreground did not really say “Ghost Town”!
However, this did not mean there were not some great images to be made. Along the walls of the store was an amazing array of rusty mining relics and farm implements from the bygone days of Cerrillos. Rust, dust and general decay – an HDR photographer’s nirvana.
Relic outside Casa Grande Trading Post, Cerrillos, New Mexico
– Click on the image to enlarge or purchase –
Click here to learn more about Los Cerrilos and the other Ghost Towns of New Mexico
Twitter: JimiJones
| August 14, 2013
Wonderful HDR shots, Mark. Man, this looks like a great place to visit and hang out for a day. Nice write-up.
Twitter: twitter (username)
| August 14, 2013
Many thanks, Jimi. The town is not that large, so a few hours would probably do. There is, though, a lot more to see on the Turquoise Trail as it winds its way from Santa Fe to Albuquerque.
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| August 16, 2013
I love the way you have handled the processing of these, Mark. It really adds something to the antiquity of this place
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| August 16, 2013
Many thanks, Andy.