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The St. James was first built in 1872, on the recommendation of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, by Henri (later Henry) Lambert, personal chef to President Abraham Lincoln. Lambert moved west and settled in Elizabethtown, New Mexico, with hopes of making a wealthy strike. When he found little gold, he opened a restaurant and saloon. At this time, Elizabethtown, Cimarron, and much of the surrounding area was owned by Lucien B. Maxwell and was a part of the huge Maxwell Land Grant. Maxwell enticed Lambert to come to Cimarron, whereupon he founded the Lambert Inn (later to become the St. James).
The hotels was lavishly furnished with four-poster beds, marble topped tables and English china. However it appears that Lambert had a bigger vision of the hotel. In 1879 the same newspaper printed the following article: “Having made a satisfactory arrangement for the purchase of the building he is now occupying four lots adjoining each other on that block. Mr. Henry Lambert will proceed to erect a handsome building for a hotel. He informs us that as soon as spring opens he will raise the present building one story higher. It will have a north front 90 feet long extending to the alley. He will probably expend six or seven thousand dollars in improving his present property”. (Cimarron News and Press, 20 November 1879)
Oldest photograph of the hotel dated to around 1900
Buffalo Bill Cody met Annie Oakley in Cimarron and they both stayed in the hotel while planning and rehearsing their Wild West Show. They took an entire village of Indians from the Cimarron area with them when they took the show on the road. Wyatt Earp, his brother Morgan, and their wives spent 3 nights at the St. James on their way to Tombstone. After leaving the hotel they made their way to the small town of Las Vegas, NM (about 30 miles southeast of Cimarron) where they met, and became friends with, a gentleman named JJ "Doc" Holliday.
When Henry Lambert's sons, Fred and Gene, replaced the roof of the hotel in 1901, they found more than 400 bullet holes in the ceiling above the bar. A double layer of heavy wood prevented anyone from sleeping upstairs from being killed. Today, the ceiling of the dining room still holds 22 bullet holes. Henry Lambert died in 1913. His wife, Mary E. Lambert died in 1926.
F.W. “Will” Haegler bought the hotel from Lambert’s heirs in the early 1930’s. He removed and sold some of the original furnishings such as light fixtures and mantels. He converted the saloon into a dining room and renamed the hotel “The Don Diego” (Diego means James in Spanish). Because Cimarron did not have a bank during the depression years, Haegler had a safe put in the hotel and became the town’s unofficial banker. Haegler sold the hotel in the late 1940’s to the William J. Gourley family of Fort Worth. Gourley’s stepdaughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Abernathy, managed it for several years before selling it to another member of the family, Vera Gourley. In 1985 the hotel was bought by Ed and Loree Sitzberger. The couple did extensive renovation to the hotel. “We stripped everything back to the walls and ceiling and started over. We put in new electrical, new floor and new equipment.” A few pieces of the original 1880’s furniture was also discovered and refurbished. Some walls were removed and others constructed to turn several smaller rooms into larger ones and to create bathrooms.
Historical Curiosities Reverend Tolby One evening, Francisco “Pancho” Griego, a deputy sheriff and strong political supporter of several powerful politicians of the Santa Fe Ring, killed three soldiers in an argument over a monte game at the St. James Hotel. Although there were many witnesses to the murders, Griego was never indicted for any of them. At that time the first minister of Cimarron was Reverend Tolby, who was renowned for criticizing the courts in his sermons. After hearing of the murders of the three soldiers, Tolby was appalled. Several days later, while walking down the street, he ran into the local judge. "I tell you, sir, that I intend to see that Griego is brought to trial, not only for the murder of the three soldiers, but another murder to which I was a witness." He told the judge spitefully. Reverend O. P. McMains , a friend, and fellow preacher of Tolby's, soon made it his mission to track down Tolby's killer. He learned that a substitute mail carrier had been hired for that one day when Tolby was shot. It turned out that the substitute was Cruz Vega, a nephew of Franciso “Pancho” Griego. After investigating further, McMains became convinced that Vega had killed Reverend Tolby. On November 1st, 1875, Griego made a few remarks in the St. James bar that implied Allison may have had something to do with Vega’s death. Then, as if he were fidgety or overheated, he began to fan himself with his hat. Allison suspected the hat to be a cover for a draw, preempted it, fired two shots and killed Griego. He then ran everybody out of the St. James bar and locked Griego’s body inside until the next day. Allison turned himself in and was later acquitted on a plea of self defense.
Charles Kennedy Charles Kennedy drifted into the Moreno Valley of Northern New Mexico around 1865. He chose an isolated area on the Taos Trail, at the foot of Palo Flechado Pass, to build a dilapidated cabin as a home for himself, his wife Rosa, and their 3 year old son. Soon afterwards, rumors started about lone travelers, last seen headed for the pass, never to be seen again. In September of 1870, Kennedy’s wife suddenly appeared in a saloon in Elizabethtown. She had escaped from him and had made her way on foot over the mountain pass to seek help. The men at the saloon listened in horror as she told her story. Kennedy had been robbing and killing travelers on the pass for several years and in a recent fit of rage, he had just murdered her son. She also told them that there were the bones of twenty men buried on their property, and told them that Kennedy had killed their other two children before moving to the area. The men at the saloon quickly saddled up and rode back down the mountain to Kennedy’s homestead. They seized Kennedy and searched the property, finding the remains of a body and several human bones. When he arrived in Cimarron he took the head to Lambert's Saloon. Allison tried to convince Henry Lambert to hang the head over the door of the Saloon but Lambert refused. He was willing to compromise, however, and the head was secured to a pike pole and stuck at the southwest corner of the building where it resided for over a year. Kennedy is said to have murdered between 15 - 100 men before he was discovered. He always took their belongings, but he was never known to spend much money. Most likely he buried the money, waiting for a time when he could spend it without suspicion - a time which never came for him. They say the money is still buried somewhere near the rubble of his shack, deep in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Sources and References:
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