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Ancon, New Mexico

Ancon is an almost community past the end of county road C55a which terminates in Sabinoso, a community consisting of a few houses. This is a local road along the Canadian River below the outlet of the Canadian River Canyon. C55a runs along the top of a mesa before plunging into the valley; the picture at top left is taken along the road of the ranch headquarters a few hundred feet below.

 

The water is full of gray mud from runoff somewhere upstream.

 

The ruins across the river are of Cañon Largo; it's named for the valley it is in. Access to this ghost town requires a long trip back to the west.

 

There are several pastures, some with houses and domestic animals, along the road. Two of the horses were very disinterested in me but one horse was much more aggressive; that is why the picture was taken out the car window.

 

The gate is at the end of this remote miles-long road. Either they have a sense of humor or are really paranoid! If you look carefully at the large image of the gate, you'll see a roadrunner lurking behind it.

 

Canadian River Valley website
COMMENTS
Mashpee_Paula said at 8:45 a.m. on Jan 27, 2007:
Very nice pictures.
ElZorroTOX said at 12:14 p.m. on Jan 27, 2007:
Cool, I wish the pics had been a tad bigger.
Oldbogus said at 2:08 p.m. on Jan 31, 2007:
If you click on any picture in a Tabblo, a much larger version plus any tags are accessed. For instance the gate with roadrunner picture is 1654 x 1054 which pretty well fills my screen.
Siagian said at 11:33 a.m. on Feb 18, 2007:
very nice views!
Eskarp said at 9:29 p.m. on Feb 23, 2007:
I have never heard of Ancon, although there were a number of small Spanish plazas along the Canadian early in the 20th century Plaza Armenta was one of the vanished, up river from Sabinosa. The ruins of "Ancon" that you spotted are almost certainly Canon Largo, which was a small community on the west side of the Canadian. The church at Canon Largo was served as a mission church from the Mosquero Parish until the 1950s. The last priest who served it, Father Fred Stadtmueller, was supplied with a burro to carry his priestly equipment across the river. After a year with the burro, the good padre borrowed a couple of thousand dollars and bought a Piper Cub which he used to land in the flat space by the church. He called the plane "The Spirit of St. Joseph," after the parish church in Mosquero. Sharon Karpinski
Oldbogus said at 8:21 p.m. on Feb 24, 2007:
I used the name I found on my New Mexico atlas for the site. I have no idea if it is accurate but it was all I could find; I have found a lot of inconsistencies between maps on other sites.

There is likely a site at the confluence of the Mora and the Canadian also upriver. Access is the biggest problem for many of these old villages; the one I could see across the river might not even have a passable road to it from the west. And many are on private property; if this project keeps developing, I may seek more permissions for access to document the slowly fading history of NE NM.
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