Kansas City Bar, with offices on the third floor, suite 3, Rialto Bldg.,
Kansas City, Mo.]



CHAPTER XXV.

Pecos Church.

I will call attention to the Old Pecos Church which was probably owned
by the Roman Catholics at one time, but which was in ruins when I first
saw it, as I drove by with my stage coach to Santa Fe. It stood twenty
miles east of Santa Fe on the old trail. The walls were built of adobe,
the doors were round-topped and built of solid hewed timbers, with
wooden hinges, wooden latches. When I first saw the old ruins it had a
belfry on the top of it with a rounded topped opening in it the same as
the doors below. This church was built on the plan of a fort. When it
was originally built it was the storage place for all kinds of
ammunition, Roman spears, shields, breast plates, guns, powder,
ammunition of every kind and character, used by Roman Catholics for war,
and was probably built by the Aztec Indians who were; under the control
of the Spaniards. It was said to be 300 years old when I saw it 53 years
ago. It was a two-story structure, built of adobe, or sun-dried brick.
The floors of the building were built of some kind of concrete and were
hard and glossy. The upper floor was built of eight by ten timbers laid
solidly together with a crease in the crack of each timber--dovetailed--
the cracks in the timbers fitted so closely together that the creases
did not show. The under part of the floor, that part which was exposed
as ceiling for the lower room was lavishly hand carved. This carving was
said to have been done by the Indians. There was carved in some places,