SFIS: Razing of historic homes draws mixed emotions

School officials mum on plans for property

Staci Matlock | The New Mexican

7/26/2008 - 7/27/08

The house marked 317 was the last to fall Saturday morning at Santa Fe Indian School on Cerrillos Road.

It's white front façade, red-brick walls and pitched roof tumbled quickly into a pile of dusty rubble. Nearby lay humps of plaster, insulation, wood, brick and adobe from a half dozen other old houses destroyed by a bulldozer in less than three hours.

Former City Councilor Karen Heldmeyer, Councilor Miguel Chavez, a couple of historic preservation advocates and at least one Native American with a video camera watched the demolition. None of them knew in advance the houses were going to be torn down.

The 115-acre Santa Fe Indian School property belongs to the 19 New Mexico pueblos and is held in trust by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The pueblos manage the seventh- through 12th-grade boarding school via the Santa Fe Indian School board.

Chavez said he was sad the historic homes were torn down, but he respects the right of the pueblos to decide what to do on their property.

Heldmeyer and Chavez, a woodworker and experienced builder, thought it was also unfortunate the school hadn't alerted salvage companies or people who might have been able to reuse some of the fine wood and other materials from the houses. "The (brick) houses were very well made. There seemed to be a double wall interior and exterior brick with some of the old wood lath," Chavez said. "It also seemed to me the roof framing was very well done and worth keeping."

Joe Garcia, chairman of the All Indian Pueblo Council, which has representatives from all 19 pueblos, said he thought the houses had asbestos and the potential health hazard was one reason they were torn down completely. "Refurbishing isn't always an option," he said.

Workmen at the site were wetting down the piles to control the dust. They were not wearing masks.

Greg Jojola of Laguna Pueblo, the president of the Santa Fe Indian School board, and Everett Chavez of Santa Domingo Pueblo, the director of economic development for the school, declined to answer questions about the demolition. They said an official press release about plans for the property would be released Monday.

The Santa Fe Indian School was established in 1890 as an off-reservation boarding school. The U.S. government passed control of the school to the All Indian Pueblo Council in 1975, which created Santa Fe Indian School Inc.

In 2000, Congress approved a law transferring 115 acres of the Santa Fe Indian School property to the All Indian Pueblo Council. The act said the land "must be used solely for the educational, health, or cultural purposes of the Santa Fe Indian School" and prohibits gaming at the site.

Garcia said any decisions the Indian School Board of Directors make are in compliance with the act.

The school's Web site mentioned construction projects that would be completed by 2009, but gave no details.

Elaine Bergman, executive director of the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, said it was unfortunate no one from the school or pueblo council had alerted preservation groups of their plans. "At the minimum, it would have been nice to document the homes before they were demolished," she said. "We can learn from the interiors and exteriors about how they were constructed. But once they're gone, they're gone."

Greg Heltman, who grew up in Santa Fe, said he remembers riding past the houses on his bicycle decades ago. On Saturday morning he drove past them as they were torn down. He said they are some of the last good examples of the brick, pitched roof, Eastern style of architecture that came west with the railroad. "It's another piece of Santa Fe lost," Heltman said. "They could have saved one, maybe as a memorial to a dark time of (forced) acculturation."

Chavez said as he watched the demolition he stood next to a middle-aged Native American man videotaping the demolition. The man told Chavez he was happy the houses were being torn down. He said when he was a student there in the early 1970s, that's where teachers lived, and he blamed them for abusing students.

Chavez, an alumni of a Catholic school where nuns insisted on calling him Michael instead of Miguel, understands those sentiments. He said perhaps the buildings were an unwelcome symbol to the pueblos of a time when their children were plucked from their homes and forced to go to the boarding school. "They were taken away from their families and expected to learn English," he said.

But, he said, "It would have been nice if there had been more open communication, if they had shared their plans with the city, sort of under a good neighbor policy. But I guess that's hard too. They have their needs and they have to meet them, and they can't let other things get in the way."

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.