The chuck wagon was an important part of cowboy culture before the combustion engine changed life on the range. Here, some New Mexico cowboys spare some minutes from their hard-earned grub time to pose for the camera around 1890.
Photo by Dana B. Chase
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 56990.

These automobiles define the golden era of Route 66, shown here in Grants sometime around 1955. The year 2001 marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Route 66.
Photographer unknown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 56395.

Railway workers pose around Locomotive 85 in Engle, N.M., sometime around 1900.
Photo by E. J. Westervelt
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 35876.

In the old days, horses, wagons and automobiles were allowed to commingle on the Plaza in Taos, shown here during an unknown celebration sometime around 1915.
Photo by George L. Beam
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 86282.

Saloons used to be the favorite place for people to gather after a hard day's work. (Well, it seems times haven't changed that much.) These men pose inside a Taos drinking hole sometime around the early 1900s.
Photographer unknown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 104335.

Ben Wittick took this picture of his horse team and buggy around 1890 with Navajo Church Rock and the Pyramid in the background.
Photo by Ben Wittick
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 88274.

The Shuler family poses in the front room of their home in Ratón around 1897.
Photographer unknown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 72332.

This photo, taken around 1900, shows the inside of the Moreno Drug Co. in Las Cruces. Shown from left to right are Presliano Moreno, the first Hispanic to be registered as a pharmacist in New Mexico, an unidentified customer, Adelina (Carbonniere) Ames and Lupe Arvisu.
Photographer unknown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 35871.

An unidentified man and boy driving a team of mules stand in front of an adobe house in Las Cruces in 1904.
Photographer unknown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 9403.

This is the interior of a restaurant in Las Vegas around 1900. Although the exact location is unknown, it is believed that it might have been a Harvey House, serving travelers on the Santa Fe Railway.
Photographer unknown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 72504.

The San Felipe de Neri Church in Albuquerque's Old Town Plaza as it appeared around 1867. The church has undergone many exterior changes since the Spanish first colonized Albuquerque in 1706. Historians believe the steeples replaced domes that once graced the structure. Today, many auxiliary buildings are apparent and a pitched roof covers the main original flat-roofed chapel.
Photo by Nicolas Brown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 8562.

The St. James Hotel in Cimarron as it appeared sometime around 1915. The once-raucous hotel was built between 1871 and 1881 by Frenchman Henri Lambert, who once cooked for Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln. Historians believe at least 26 people died violently here as many rough-and-tumble characters of the era made this their primary watering hole. When Lambert's sons replaced the roof in 1901, they found more than 400 bullet holes in the ceiling above the bar. Today, many people will tell you that the now-refurbished hotel is haunted with many unexplained events routinely occurring throughout the Territorial-style building.
Photographer unknown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 49157.

A glimpse in the office life of the past is possible through this photo of Herman Gerhardt's Insurance and Real Estate Office in Tucumcari sometime between 1916 and 1920.
Photographer unknown
Museum of New Mexico Negative No. 150167.