The Hidden Legacies on Route 66 in New Mexico

These stories of sites, neighborhoods, individuals, and more expand the narrative to include the histories beyond the diners, drive-ins, motels, and road side attractions that we know and love. 

Artists, suffragists, ranchers, photographers, and airplane pilots, some names on this list might be more familiar than others, but all were trailblazers.

Velarde’s colorful depictions were highly praised, and she soon embarked upon a career as a professional artist.

In 1939, Velarde and 10 other artists (many of whom were also graduates of The Studio) were hired to work on a set of seventeen richly colored frescoes on the walls of the recessed entranceway at Maisel’s Indian Trading Post in downtown Albuquerque in 1939.

After being hired by the Works Progress Administration from 1930-1945, she created 84 works of art depicting Pueblo life in the visitor’s center of Bandelier National Monument.

Learn more about Pablita Velarde.

Educated at Maryville College of the Sacred Heart in Missouri, Otero-Warren became a respected professional, suffragist, and public servant. 

She was also the first woman to win the Republican Party nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives (1922) and served as a literacy director for both the Civilian Conservation Corps (1935) and the Works Progress Administration (1937).


With her life and business partner of 20 years, Mamie Meadors, she homesteaded Las Dos Ranch outside of Santa Fe and developed Las Dos Real Estate and Insurance Company which she ran until her death in 1965.

Learn more about Adelina Otero-Warren. 

She was the daughter of a senator and the wife of Congressman and later Senator Joseph Medill McCormick of Illinois who died by suicide in 1925. During this first marriage, she took part in progressive reform activities in Chicago while raising their three children.

There, McCormick Simms created the Los Poblanos Ranch, a dairy and experimental farm that included grazing land that stretched from the Rio Grande to the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.


McCormick Simms ran the ranch, three media outlets, started the Sandia School for Girls, and built La Quinta, a cultural center adjacent to her ranch home, which served as the neighborhood’s first public library.      

Learn more about Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms. 

Lange also documented farm workers in New Mexico for the FRA at a planned, cooperative community called Bosque Farms, established on the historic alignment of Route 66 between Los Lunas and Albuquerque in 1935.

It was then included as part of a New Deal Program in 1934 which purchased land for planting and housing itinerant farm workers.

Lange’s empathetic photographs captured the difficult experiences of families moving across the country in search of work.

Learn more about Dorothea Lange. 

During this time, Pueblo pottery—practical craftwork long created for domestic use—was recognized for its artistry, skillfulness, and beauty by a large audience. 

Maria and Julian Martinez established close ties and friendships with Edgar Lee Hewett and other Museum of New Mexico staff during the early years of the institution's archaeological field school on the Pajarito Plateau near their home at San Ildefonso Pueblo. 

With Maria working as a potter and Julian as a designer, they created a striking new style by scoring patterns on a polished solid black background.


These pots were eventually sold in the Palace shop where they were highly prized by visitors. 

Learn more about Maria Martinez.

As the creator of the hotel’s iconic interiors, Colter established a unique and recognizable aesthetic influenced by the regional vernacular buildings and art of the American Southwest. 

For La Fonda, Colter designed every interior element of the hotel’s 156 guest rooms and public spaces.

No two guest rooms were alike. Colter created the hotel’s popular Indian Room, a showcase and selling space for local crafts and decorative art. These emporiums, bursting with items displayed like museum exhibitions, marketed Southwest style throughout the country.  

Learn more about Mary Jane Coulter and more women's history at La Fonda.

Stinson Otero gained further national fame becoming the first woman to fly U.S. mail cross country. 


During World War I, Stinson Otero was denied the option of flying combat missions for the Army Air Corps because of her gender, so she volunteered to drive an ambulance in France only to contract tuberculosis. 

A decorated combat pilot during the war, he shared her love of flying. The two married and made their permanent home in Santa Fe.


Frail and with her aviation career over, Stinson Otero self-trained as an architect and began to design residences in Santa Fe, working exclusively in the regional adobe tradition. She became a busy “lay-architect,” builder, and real estate developer.  

Learn more about Katherine Stinson Otero.

Discover more about each of these women and additional untold stories along Route 66 in New Mexico through the "Hidden Legacies on Route 66 in New Mexico project. This multi-year collaboration is between the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Preserve Route 66 campaign and the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico. 

Learn more about the National Trust for Historic Preservation's campaign to preserve Route 66, sign our petition to advocate for the Mother Road,  and then share your Route 66 story with us.