Posts published in “Veltri’s Vault”

A Sweet 100 Years: Raton’s Pappas Family Celebrates a Century of “Going Forward”in the Food Service Industry By Pat Veltri One hundred years of anything is a remarkable accomplishment. Despite seeming like it’s been around forever, any business that makes it to that illustrious benchmark had to start somewhere and…

      It was business as usual on a Thursday evening at the Arthur Johnson Memorial Library, the one night of the week that the library extends its hours to 9:00 p.m. Library director, Thayla Wright, now retired, was working the late shift, along with a co-worker, who was…

Ruth Brown Saunders: Colfax County Educator By Pat Veltri Wilson School, the First Year Wilson School, courtesy of Bill Littrell’s book, Forgotten Schools of Colfax County, New Mexico, page 174 Depression era winters on the prairie land surrounding the tiny village of Maxwell were typically brutal. On one memorable winter day in…

Raton’s Kearny Entrada: A History Lesson Packed with Fun By Pat Veltri Saturday, May 27, 1954…It was a beautiful Spring day, bright and crisp. Hear Ye! Hear Ye! The call of the bailiff reverberated in the air, summoning Ratonians to the first session of the Kearny Entrada Kangaroo Court. Ladies…

Readers, take a moment and skip backward in time to nineteenth century Colorado Territory, circa 1870. Put yourself in a top of the line Barlow and Sanderson stagecoach coated in red with colorful yellow wheels, and packed at full capacity with riders. The resplendent coach, drawn by six large mules,…

   Imagine this scene from Raton’s past: Saturday night, sometime in the early 1950s. A tide of miners, ranchers, race trackers, and theater-goers swelled the downtown streets. The white noise whoosh of traffic moved along Raton’s main drag. Second Street was alive with the revving engines and blaring horns of…

In Fond Memory of Bill Fegan Actor, Director, Producer, Booking Agent, Entrepreneur who established a permanent base for professional theater in Raton and brought cultural enrichment to many 1927-2021 Theater Group Found Home at Shuler and National Popularity by Pat Veltri Originally published in The Raton Range, May 27, 2008, The…

A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, accompanied by a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance. Gently falling rain pitter-pattered against the front window of the truck as it toodled along the road. A family of five was crowded, sardine-like in the cab of the truck. The truck…

The late Byron Nelson, popularly considered one of the greatest professional golfers of all time, and his wife Peggy, were positively delighted with their painting by artist Milbie Benge. The huge 30” x 40” oil painting, displayed on a bedroom wall of their Texas ranch, was a landscape of a…