Lost Las Vegas 9

Lopez House with South Gonzales St. beyond
Photo by J.N Furlong
Courtesy of Museum of N.M.
# 66005

11. Lopez House

E side S. Pacific at Socorro

ca.l855-ca.1925

This was the residence of Francisco and Petra B. Lopez, original settlers of Las Vegas in 1835. This beautiful Spanish adobe brick home, with a flat roof and an extensive portal, had its drawbacks also. After Don Francisco invited the Jesuits to establish a school in his home, Father M.T. Hughes mentions, "when the rains began the house afforded little shelter the water first oozed through in tiny drops and as the porous roof absorbed more and more water these tiny drops grew to little streams and soon the rooms became unfit for anything else but shower baths."* For this reason as soon as the railroad brought new roofing materials, the Lopez's and many others in Las Vegas decided to build a pitched roof onto their flat-roofed adobe homes. Soonafter a new school was built on S. Gonzales.
The interior of these type of homes was described by Ovando Hollister as being, "very neat and cozy, the walls nicely white-washed; the fireplaces small and handy, shaped like the half of an old fashioned beehive, with a small flue leading out for the chimney. Mattresses rolled up in day into a setee around the walls. A table, stools, skillet, coffee pot comprise the furniture. The ornaments even among the best class consist wholly of ordinary prints of sacred subjects mounted in tin frames, and images of saints roughly carved in wood."** The home apparently decayed until it's removal.
*M. Callon, LV, the Town that wouldn't Garnble,pg.82

**L. Perrigo, Gateway to Glorieta,pg.6

Francisco Lopez
Photo Courtesy of Paul Taylor y Romero

Petra Lopez
Photo Courtesy of Paul Taylor y Romero

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