The Legal Tender

"Where the Pavement Ends and the West Begins"

by Ken Bower, Ed.D.

The Legal Tender was built in 1881 as the Browne and Manzanares General Store. It is Lamy's oldest surviving structure. In the 1950s it was converted into a restaurant called The Pink Garter. Around 1970 it was remodeled and renamed The Legal Tender. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. The Legal Tender building was donated to the Lamy Railroad & History Museum in 2006. On July 13, 2018 it was acquired by Allan Affeld through an Arizona nonprofit, Winslow Arts Trust. It will be rededicated to its original purpose of serving the public.

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Lamy, New Mexico

The town of Lamy is located 18 miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico on US Hwy 285. Lamy is a railroad town created in 1879 when the Atchison,Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad laid its main track through New Mexico. The AT & SF by-passed the city of Santa Fe because the climb was too much for the engines of the day, so a spur line was built to the capital from Lamy. Lamy grew up where the spur line connects Santa Fe to the main track.