The Los Cerrillos school photo is posted here to demo how to make a learnode from a historical artifact. This photo was preserved by my Mother’s aunt Alma North (later Ferguson). Her father George Willis North gave the land to the town for the stone school in front of which the students and their teacher are posed, with Alma at the top left. These facts, and a few more about the school, can be found in a North family history written by Alma’s son Jack Ferguson in 1987, and now posted on my personal website judybreck.com.
The travel website Legends of America has a well-researched article about Los Cerrillos. Another source for information on the town is The Santa Fe County Cerrillos Hills Historic Park. It describes the founding of the town to which my great-grandfather George Willis North and his wife Ida Lupfer North moved with their three children Alma, Clarence (my grandfather), and May in 1887 and remained until 1896.
The Village of Cerrillos was established in 1879 as a tent camp between the lead and silver of the Cerrillos Hills to the north and the coal of Madrid and the gold of Placer and Ortiz Mountains to the south. It flourished as a natural point of access to both areas, but it was the arrival of the railroad in 1880 that assured the fate of the Village of Cerrillos would be different than that of Carbonateville. A few of the mines survived into the 20th century. The American Turquoise Company, an agency of Tiffany, New York, was active around the turn of the century, especially at Turquoise Hill on the north side of the Cerrillos.
I can recall my grandfather Clarence Lupfer North talking about the men from Tiffany. He told me he remembered from when he was a boy that they got big pieces of excellent turquoise from Los Cerrillos to make jewelry for the grand store in New York City.
This node (“knot” is the root of the word node) ties together strands of history and memory – and links out to many more nodes – enriching learning from the dynamic micro level of the Net.
