Santa Fe A Walk Through Time

Exchange Hotel/La Fonda (East San Francisco Street at Old Santa Fe Trail) A hostelry, known by a succession of names, has sat across from the southeast corner of the Plaza at the end of the Santa Fe Trail for as long as anyone can remember. Travelers in 1849 describe dining well and finding "comfortable drink" at the United States (or U.S.) Hotel. By 1871 the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper described completion of recent improvements to the "Exchange Hotel or 'Fonda' of this city," which was now "unquestionably one of the most commodious and comfortable hotels in the West" with the best management this side of the Mississippi (top right). In 1886, when the establishment was called the Hotel Capital (the same year a hotel by the same name occupied the corner diagonally across the Plaza; see #31), it made no secret of its gambling room that appeared prominently on that year's city's insurance map.Clark, Willard F. is the author of 'Santa Fe A Walk Through Time', published 2004 under ISBN 9781586853594 and ISBN 1586853597.