By Rick Holben
Located just south of Tijeras in Cedro Canyon, Los Alamitos was once a small community within the Cañon de Carnué Land Grant, and a 1893 land grant map shows the community as home to six families. In 1902, however, the U.S. government drastically reduced the grant from the 90,000 acres granted to the original petitioners under Spanish law in 1819, down to just slightly more than 2,000 acres. Los Alamitos was now outside the new grant boundary and shortly thereafter, in 1906, became part of the Manzano Forest Reserve. Original grant residents lost control of this land, but U.S. homestead laws made provisions that would allow land grant residents to make “small holding claims” or “forest re-entry claims” for their family homes and some portion of their agricultural lands.
While the identity of the original six families is unknown, 1902 tax notices show that a Francisco Nuanes was assessed taxes on land, with improvements, that was bounded on the north side by the “Spring of Los Alamitos.” In 1909, Francisco Nuanes y Atencio filed a forest re-entry claim for 60 acres just south of Tijeras in Section 26. On the paperwork filed, Nuanes stated he had settled on the land in 1886. Francisco apparently died shortly after making his claim, as in 1912 his widow, Petronila Lopez de Nuanes, received a patent for the 60 acres. In 1914, Petronila Nuanes sold the property to Otto and Clara Schoenberg. Otto was a Forest Ranger for the Manzano District and Clara was the postmaster for Tijeras from 1913 to 1917. From the Schoenbergs, the property passed briefly into ownership by L.J. Adams of Estancia and Albuquerque Realtor B.E. Dieckmann.
In 1922, Dieckmann and his wife Irene sold the property to Bernard Ruppe of Albuquerque, who began calling it his “Los Alamitos Ranch.” Bernard Ruppe was a German immigrant who arrived in Albuquerque in 1883 and established a drug store that survived under different owners at different locations into the 21st century. In the 1890s and early 1900s, he worked with the Albuquerque fire department and actively worked mines in the Sandia Mountains, including the La Luz Mine, after which the popular Sandia Mountain hiking trail is named. While Ruppe’s primary residence was in Albuquerque, his Los Alamitos Ranch was used for summer retreats and social events. One such gathering was held for his fellow Spanish American War veterans and reportedly had 120 attendees.
In 1927, Ruppe leased the property to Ralph and Ella Mae Dunbar, who ran a restaurant called the “Alamitos Tea Room.” A copy of the lease agreement, which still exists, gives a detailed description of the property, including buildings that can be seen in the 1950 photo and still exist today. In 1929, the Dunbars left the Tea Room to operate the Forest Park Inn just north of Carl Webb’s Cedar Crest Resort. Bernard Ruppe died in 1937, followed by his wife Caroline Flora Ruppe in 1947. Their daughter, Eugenia Case of Los Angeles, Calif., inherited the property.
The property was then sold to Valentine and Marjorie Knott, originally from Minnesota. Valentine was a foot doctor who had run an office in Albuquerque since at least the early 1940s. In addition to remodeling the home, the Knotts subdivided the 60-acre tract, creating what is now Los Alamitos Addition subdivision. At the home, the small religious statue in a niche above the front door and a small stone chapel in the front yard, which can still be seen today, are likely additions made by the Knotts. Mrs. Knott is said to have been a devout Catholic. By the mid-1950s, the Knotts had left Los Alamitos.
The home has had a number of owners since. But aside from a room added to the back of the house in the 1960s, the property has remained largely unchanged since the 1950s. Until the 1950s, Los Alamitos Spring ran just north of the house, crossing under Highway 10 (now N.M. 337), supplying water for a stone pond before it emptied into the Cedro Canyon Arroyo. This year, in 2025, the house will have a new caretaker. The new owner, taking over from 17-year resident Thomas “ Lynn” Baker, is Jovan Nieto, a native of Tijeras Canyon, who traces his own family history back to some of the earliest residents of the Cañon de Carnué Land Grant and the East Mountains.