A century ago this year, the “Carl” who named Carlito Springs captured the country’s attention by exposing the biggest political scandal of the era.
He was Carl Magee, one of the more remarkable figures from New Mexico’s early statehood history.
Magee not only developed the Tijeras Canyon retreat and renamed it after his late son, Carl Jr. He also unearthed the Teapot Dome scandal, founded The Albuquerque Tribune, shot a judge in self-defense, and invented the parking meter.
The Magees settled in New Mexico in 1919 after Grace Magee’s tuberculosis forced the family to leave Tulsa for a more healthful clime.
In Albuquerque, Magee bought the Journal and began pursuing a lifelong dream of running a “truth-telling” newspaper.
His exposés infuriated U.S. Sen. Albert Fall, leader of the state’s Republican political machine. Their feud continued after Fall became U.S. secretary of the interior. In that role, he cut secret deals to allow two oil tycoons to drill in the Navy’s Teapot Dome and Elk Hills petroleum reserves.
As the Journal raised questions about the arrangements and Fall’s sudden signs of wealth, Fall lashed out, forcing Magee to sell the newspaper. The editor responded by launching a new newspaper, which would evolve into The Albuquerque Tribune.
While Magee was running the papers, Grace was spending time with their two youngest children – Trudy and Ted – at Whitcomb Springs on the north side of Tijeras Canyon, where an old mining camp had evolved into a tourist retreat and haven for tuberculosis sufferers.
The family fell in love with the resort as Grace recovered her health and the kids frolicked on the hillsides. Magee sometimes commuted to work from there.
In time, he was called to Washington to share what he had learned about Fall and Teapot Dome. His testimony before the Senate Public Lands Committee in late 1923 and early 1924 turned a humdrum political controversy into a scandal that rocked America.
Investigators uncovered some $400,000 in payments the oil millionaires made to the interior secretary, equivalent to about $6.5 million today. Fall was convicted of bribery and sent to prison.
That wasn’t the end of Magee’s story. Far from it.
A vindictive Republican judge tried him on trumped-up charges of libel and contempt, and Magee escaped imprisonment thanks only to gubernatorial pardons.
Later that same judge met Magee in the lobby of what is now the El Fidel hotel in Las Vegas and attacked, beating him with fist and feet.
Sprawled on the floor, the editor grabbed a gun and shot his assailant in the arm. But the gunfire also killed a bystander. Magee was charged with mansalughter but acquitted.
Eventually, Magee sold his paper and became editor of the Oklahoma News. In that role, he was recruited by the Chamber of Commerce to try to solve Oklahoma City’s downtown parking congestion.
The editor had an idea. He invented the parking meter and patented it. Millions of his Park-O-Meters would be sold around the world.
Financial success in Oklahoma allowed Magee to pursue another dream. He and Grace purchased the old Whitcomb Springs resort, and they renamed it Carlito Springs, in honor of their eldest son, who had died in a small plane crash just a few weeks after the tragic shooting in Las Vegas.
With their friends, C. Cameron and Kora Meacham, the Magees developed the site. Verbenas, roses, and pansies filled formal gardens, with mountain wildflowers spreading beyond. More than 2,000 trout inhabited pools along sunken and terraced rock gardens. The dining room in the main house displayed oils by Southwestern artist Charles Bolsius.
Newspaper ads offered cabins for rent, and the property hosted special events, such as the wedding of noted pilot Evan Lewis and Helene Lubitsch, ex-wife of Hollywood director Ernest Lubitsch. After the nuptials, the couple was spotted with screen star Gary Cooper at the Albuquerque airport.
When the Magee’s daughter Trudy grew up, she eloped with a star athlete (and bright student) from the University of New Mexico named Tony Grenko. The couple was wed by a justice of the peace in Estancia.
After Carl and Grace died, the Grenkos moved to Carlito Springs. Tony went ot work at Sandia Laboratories, and the couple continued to beautify the site.
They expanded it, buying 92 adjacent acres, and planted a quarter million flower bulbs along the mountain paths. The resort business continued until 1958. After that, Carlito Springs was just home.
Tragedy struck in 1975, when the Grenkos’ 14-year-old grandson William Handley died after contracting bubonic plague from a flea bite while spending the summer at Carlito Springs. In 1981, another grandson, Brent Handley, registered a ponderosa pine on the property as the tallest in the state.
Tony Grenko died in 1996 at the age of 92. That year, Trudy moved out of Carlito Springs. She had lived there 50 years. She spent the rest of her life in Albuquerque, dying in 2002 at the age of 93.
By then, the citizens of Bernalillo County owned Carlito Springs.
On December 11, 2000, the county used a new quarter-mill property tax to buy the 177-acre tract for $1.5 million.
Carlito Springs recently reopened after Phase II renovation, and today it is a crown jewel of Bernalillo County’s open space program.
(Jack McElroy’s biography of Carl Magee – Citizen Carl: The Editor Who Cracked Teapot Dome, Shot a Judge and Invented the Parking Meter – was published recently by the University of New Mexico Press.)`