1960 – Building a City

Santa Fe experienced a building boom in 1960, as predicted by the city’s leading home builders, Allen Stamm. He was one of three area builders who were planning to build 1000 new homes in Santa Fe by 1961.

The City of Santa Fe counted the number of street intersections within the city limits. It was 750.  Bids were being taken for installing street signs, white on brown and mounted on poles, on all street intersections. For most streets in Santa Fe, this was a first. The absence of street signs in the city had long been the chief complaint of tourists and newcomers to Santa Fe. The City hoped that marking the streets would improve  mail, fire, police and utility services.

Hyde Park road, 16 miles of rough road from the city to the ski lift, received $225,000 in improvements. And surveyors began plotting the route of the proposed cross-town highway, to be called St. Francis Drive.

Mountain States Telephone Company built an addition to their building on corner of Shelby and Water. And construction started on the New Mexico Education Association Building, on South Capital.

St. Michael's College, after years of working out of old barracks left over from the Bruns Hospital days, announced an ambitious building project, including a new library and gymnasium at a price tag of $500,000.

The New Mexico State Police revealed plans for a completely new administration building, the site as yet unselected. They outgrew the old one – a beautiful Santa Fe pueblo style building on Cerrillos Road, next to the new Highway Department building.

The federal General Services Administration asked congressional approval to build a federal building and post office in Santa Fe adjoining the federal courthouse. the proposed building contract price was right around 3 million dollars.

It took 46 sticks of dynamite to destroy the last vestige of the old state penitentiary on Pen Road -  the old brick chimney. It was the only sign of the original penitentiary remaining after demolition had begun in 1960.  State prisoners had been in residence at the new penitentiary on Highway 14 since 1954.

To build anew, one must first destroy the old, it seemed.  And so it was with the Nusbaum Building on Washington Avenue. In the past, it had been the home of Jesse Nusbaum, photographer, archaeologist and builder. He was superintendent of the renovation of the Palace of the Governors (1909-1913).  Most famous as a photographer, Nusbaum began his career as a builder, a trade he learned from his father, a contractor and brickyard owner in Greeley, Colorado.

By 1960, the aging building had come into the ownership of the City of Santa Fe and the city fathers decided that the property could be better used as a parking lot. The Old Santa Fe Association leapt to the defense of the historic structure and debate was lively for a few months, but in the end, the City Council voted to raze the Nusbaum Building to the ground and build a parking lot.