Culture, History, Historic House
The Santa Fe railroad arrived in Belen in 1880, when Belen was just a small farming community. For the next 25 years, there was little train traffic through Belen, because the main rail line went west from Albuquerque. But in 1908 the railroad opened a new line that avoided the steep grades over Raton Pass. This new line was the Belen cut-off, and it routed many more trains through Belen. Belen began to bustle.