The stores of the town generally front on the Public Square.
Of these there are a dozen, more or less, of respectable
size, and most of them are kept by others than Mexicans.
The business of the place is considerable, many of the
merchants here being wholesale dealers for the vast
territory tributary. It is supposed that about $750,000
worth of goods will be brought to this place this year, and
there may be $250,000 worth imported directly from the
United States.

In the money market there is nothing less than a five-cent
piece. You cannot purchase anything for less than five cents.
In trade they reckon ten cents the eighth of a dollar.
If you purchase nominally a dollar's worth of an article,
you can pay for it in eight ten-cent pieces; and if you
give a dollar, you receive no change. In changing a dollar
for you, you would get but eight ten-cent pieces for it.

Yet, although dirty and unkempt, and swarming with hungry
dogs, it has the charm of foreign flavour, and like
San Antonio retains some portion of the grace which long
lingered about it, if indeed it ever forsakes the spot
where Spain held rule for centuries, and the soft syllables
of the Spanish language are yet heard.

Such was a description of the "drowsy old town" of Santa Fe,
sixty-five years ago. Fifteen years later Major W. H. Emory, of
the United States army, writes of it as follows:[6]