This unusual history and travel book explores a fascinating cross-section of New Mexico's historic hotels, inns, stage stations, resorts, and guest ranches that were operational before 1940. A few are long gone, but most are still open for business. These Southwest havens are constant reminders of the region's long continuum of travel and tourism and rich symbols of community identity and change. New Mexico's historic lodgings offer their guests a genuinely regional experience and a taste of a unique way of life and blend of cultures. The history, folklore, and traditions related by the author breathe life into these old hostelries.

Covering the whole state, Lynn writes about the Alvarado Hotel and La Posada in Albuquerque, La Fonda in Santa Fe, the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, the Stratford Hotel in Shakespeare, the Montezuma, Plaza, and Castaneda Hotels in Las Vegas, the Black Range Lodge, Victorio Hotel, and Ocean Grove Hotel in Kingston and Hillsboro, the Lodge at Cloudcroft, the Vermejo Park Ranch near Raton, and the Shaffer Hotel in Mountainair.