New Mexico Ghost Towns by Donna Blake Birchell

Author:Donna Blake Birchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

NARA VISA

35.6066, -103.1001

Situated on the Canadian River Break, Nara Visa began life as a railroad town for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, which was built in 1901. The town gained its name from the nearby Nara Visa Creek, which was thought to have been an Americanized version of the name of a sheepherder who lived in the area, Narvaez. It is thought that the English-speaking setters pronounced his name “Narvis,” and it got corrupted further to Nara Visa. On the Texas–New Mexico border, Nara Visa claimed to have 112 residents in the 2000 census.

Henry F. King was the first section foreman for the railroad and the first person to live in the town of Nara Visa. Since the train depot was the only structure in the town in 1901, King and his wife lived in a boxcar that became a boardinghouse of sorts for others who needed a place to stay. By 1902, a section house, a dugout school and post office could be found in the town.

The Nara Visa Bank came into existence when Sim and Fred McFarland moved to the tiny hamlet from La Veta, Colorado, in 1902 to work on their uncle’s ranch. Instead, they set up a boxcar store, which included a safe, on the other side of the tracks from the original townsite. Customers began entrusting their money to the brothers, who also cashed their “checks,” which were written in those days on brown paper sacks or scraps of paper. The McFarlands eventually sold their business to John and Anastacia Burns and moved to Logan, New Mexico, to establish the McFarland Brothers Bank in 1904. Nara Visa School, also known as the Nara Visa Community Center, was built in 1925 by Joseph Champ Berry and is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.