Amador Hotel, Las Cruces, Guía del visitante y qué hacer cerca

The Amador Hotel is a two-story adobe building at the corner of Water Street and Amador Avenue in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It has been a local landmark since the 1800s and is tied to the Amador family, who ran it for generations. It is a good place to see how the young town of Las Cruces looked and lived.

The story behind it

The hotel belonged to Martin Amador, a pioneer freighter, farmer and businessman. He added the second story in 1885. Local historians also credit him with helping bring the railroad to Las Cruces, at a time when neighboring Mesilla wanted nothing to do with it. Four generations of the Amador family are said to have run the building, welcoming travelers from far away.

The street outside tells a story too. Water Street takes its name from an acequia, a community irrigation ditch that once carried river water through this part of town to fields and gardens. The ditch is long gone, buried under pavement, but the name remains. Restoration work on the hotel has been uncovering older layers of the building beneath later changes.

What to look for

• Notice the two-story form of the building, and remember that the upper floor was a later addition from 1885.
• Look at the thick, earthen look of the walls, typical of adobe construction in the Southwest.
• Stand at the corner of Water Street and Amador Avenue and see how both street names point to the people and the land that shaped the town.
• Pause on Water Street and picture the acequia that once ran here, now hidden beneath the road.

Tips for your visit

• Plan about 15 to 20 minutes for the building itself, longer if you combine it with a walk through the surrounding downtown streets.
• Late afternoon light is kind to adobe walls and makes the exterior easier to photograph.
• The building has been going through restoration, so check current access and opening hours before expecting to go inside.
• Downtown Las Cruces is compact and walkable, so it is easy to pair the hotel with other nearby stops on foot.

See it on a quest

The Amador Hotel is one stop on Ghost Hunt in Las Cruces, a self-guided walk through the area that suits anyone who likes a little spooky atmosphere with their history. You reach the hotel on foot as part of a longer route, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle right in front of what you are looking at. There is no guide and no group to join, so you can start whenever you like. It is a paid quest, and one ticket covers the whole group.