Cyber Café and Boomerang

Española’s history continues to fall into backhoe buckets. Sometimes a story appears in the local newspaper, but even those few items provide little information.

The adobe compound across from Sonic at the traffic light for Upper San Pedro Road was leveled last July. All the papers revealed is what I already knew. When I moved here, before the internet was widely available, Oasis Cyber Café used the space.

While it still was operating, Anna Dillane open Boomerang Thrift Boutique in the back building in 2002. In 2010, she moved in to the main building, and closed her business in 2016. [1] Sotheby’s erected for sale signs. It since has been purchased by Sonic [2] for $329,000. [3]

I suspect it was a very old farmstead that once extended east to the Santa Cruz river. At that time, I think what is now Middle San Pedro Road was the main artery from Santa Fé to a local church. It probably drew irrigation water directly from the river.

By the 1930s, and probably earlier, farmland was opened to the west along what became Upper San Pedro Road.

A small house existed at the southwest corner of the lot, that probably wasn’t the first residence, but was the oldest surviving one. Later, after the highway to Santa Fé was built, land usage was reoriented toward the east.

The ditch probably was redesigned after the La Mesilla Ditch was constructed. A diversion point exists at the southeast corner. One branch goes along Riverside, no doubt replacing the feeds that were disrupted by the high way. Another curves along Middle San Pedro, and a third goes along the north boundary. The site became surrounded by a moat, which must have made it fertile.

I was never sure if the main building, in fact had been a home, or had been a tourist building, perhaps a small inn or restaurant. In 2010, it had eight rooms and two hallways. [4] The building on the south side of the road was once the Flamingo Bar.

A plain building was behind the main one that might have been a garage of some kind. If there had been more buildings on the north side, they disappeared under the paved drive. Ones knows there had to have been outhouses before city plumbing.

A yard wall went around the back with two arched entrances. The smaller house was beyond the back gate.

If anyone knows more about the original owners, please add a comment or send an email to NasonMcormic@Cybermesa.com.

Notes on photographs:
1. Main building, 15 January 2012.
2. Rear house, 17 January 2012.
3. Ditch entrance,15 January 2012.
4. Out building, 9 November 2014.
5. Yard wall and gate, 17 January 2012.

End notes:
1. "Boomerang Thrift Boutique." Horsetail Trails website. 5 January 2010.

2. Amanda Martinez. "Sonic to Change Address, Just Across the Street." Rio Grande Sun, 23 November 2018.

3. "814 S Riverside Drive." Sotheby’s Santa Fé website.
4. Horsetail Trails.