Double Eagle Restaurant

“On the Mesilla Plaza, three miles southwest of Las Cruces, is the National Registered Historical Building that is now the site of the Double Eagle and Peppers Restaurants. The building was built in 1849, has witnessed many colorful and historical events, including the confirmation of the Gadsden Purchase on the Plaza in 1853 and the Secessionist Convention declaration of Mesilla as capital of the Arizona Territory in 1861. (It was destined to be the only territory of the Confederacy). Also, notorious Billy the Kid was jailed by Sheriff Pat Garrett and tried in Mesilla in 1881.

In 1972, the private residence was acquired by Robert 0. Anderson. The year 1984 saw major restoration completed by the present owner, C. W. “Buddy” Ritter, a fifth generation Mesilla decedent. Antiques, many of which have their equal only in the finest museums, were painstakingly collected by well-known designer John Meigs.

Upon passing through the post-Civil War, 1,000 pound cast iron and gilded gates, patrons are surrounded by a vast assortment of antiques. The divider separating the entry and the Imperial Bar has two rolled-glass panels etched with water lilies and cattails, framed with oak-turned columns and spindle fretwork. The large cherry and walnut German cupboard is in the style of Empire Revival and has a French polished veneer finish with a pullout serving tray. The 12-foot gold-leafed pier mirror is carved with a shell and acanthus leaf pattern.”

Crdie: http://www.doubleeagleonline.com/history/

Episode Transcript

Bunny : (00:00)
Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry, and you’re listening to the I Love New Mexico podcast. Whether you’re a native new Mexican, who’s lived here for your entire life, or you’re just considering a visit, this episode is for you. Join us as we share a lot of New Mexico stories, talk about all things New Mexico, and include topics like what’s magical here, where you ought to visit, what’s happening, and the things you absolutely cannot miss in the land of Enchantment. We’re excited that you’re here, and we can’t wait to show you what an amazing place New Mexico is, because let’s face it, I love New Mexico.

Bunny : (00:51)
Welcome to episode three of the, I Love New Mexico podcast, haunted New Mexico’s series. We’re having so much fun with this series because we’re, um, not only getting to talk to people who have had paranormal and supernatural experiences in New Mexico, but we’re also getting to read lots of stories. And one of the things that’s come up every time we’ve talked on, um, Facebook or Instagram, or in the blog or on the podcast about places that are haunted in New Mexico, um, other than the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, which we talked about last week. So don’t be sure and be sure and don’t miss that episode. Go back and take a listen. Um, one of the other places that keeps coming up is the Doug Double Eagle Restaurant in Mesilla. And Mesilla has a special place in my heart because that’s where I lived for a while when I was a student at New Mexico State. It’s the Double Eagle is on the National Registry of Historic Buildings. It was constructed in the late 1840s. One, um, account has it constructed in 1849, and it was, um, it’s, it, you know, one of the notes I read said, it’s witnessed many colorful and historical events from the Mexican American War of 1846 to the confirmation of the Gadsden purchase on the Plaza in 1853. If you’ve ever been to Mesilla which is in Southern New Mexico, just about three miles west of Las Cruces, then you, um, then you know exactly what we’re talking about. The Gadsden purchase, which made the southern portion of New Mexico, part of the United States happened on the Plaza in 1853 to the Secessionist Convention Declaration of Mesilla as capital of the Arizona Territory in 1861. So, so there, it was a private residence for a long time. And then in 1872, um, Robert O. Anderson, who is a colorful, um, rather wealthy businessman in the history of New Mexico, purchased it.

Bunny : (03:09)
And then in 1984, um, buddy Ritter, who is a fifth generation Mesilla descendant, bought the building and restored it. So, um, the Double Eagle became a restaurant and Subpoint, but people who work at the restaurant have many stories about ghosts in the restaurant, especially in the Carlotta room. And so I thought, I’m gonna, I’m gonna figure this out. I’m going to read everything I can about the double legal, and then I’m going to share what I’ve read with you. And as you, as you might imagine, the accounts are different in many places, but what I’ve gathered is that at the time that the Double Eagle was a private residence, um, owned by the Maes family, that’s m a e Ss e. And, um, they, they were a wealthy family in Southern New Mexico, and they had a son whose name was Armando. And Armando happened to have the, um, I’m sure he thought it was good luck at the time, but, um, the bad luck to fall in love with a maid that was hired by the family, and the maid’s name was Ines. Armando fell in love with Inez, much, much to the distress of his mother. And one afternoon, Carlotta, who was Armando’s mother, came home and found the two lovers romantically, entwined in her bedroom, and she was enraged. And Carlotta took, grabbed a pair of scissors and moved towards Inez in order to stab her to death. And in an attempt to protect his lover. The story goes that Armando leaped in front of Inez and Carlotta stabbed her son and killed him in the scuffle. Um, there, the, this is where the accounts began to differ. Inez escaped the bloody scene and was not seen in town for more than a year, is more than a year, is one of the accounts. Another account says that Carlotta was after killing, Armando was so enraged that she also killed Inez. All I can tell you is that, um, evidently Armando was killed by his mother in the Carlotta room at the Double Eagle, long before it was a restaurant, um, in the late 18 hundreds.

Bunny : (05:51)
And, the account that differs says that Ines, who left Mesilla and then came back a year later, um, she returned to Macia in disguise, but was recognized in the Plaza by a drunken cowboy. A confrontation perhaps occurred be between the two, and Ines was fatally shot. And local CI citizens who were unaware of her identity, brought her wounded body into Carlotta’s home and, and brought her into Carlotta’s, Carlotta’s own bedroom. And it was there on Carlotta’s bed that Inez died. So Ines died at some point in Carlotta’s room, perhaps on the day that Carlotta killed her own son, Armando, or perhaps a year later when she was fatally shot on the plaza and carried into Carlotta’s room regardless of when it happened. Um, obviously Armando and Inez, the young lovers who were fatally killed as a result of their love, have continued to hang out at the Double E Eagle and, um, frightened both guests and workers. There was a, uh, Fox 14 out of El Paso went to the, um, double Eagle at one point. Um, the dates on that visit, let me see if I, I I’ve read this so many times that it’s, um, okay, so last October, so they, they printed this last October, um, and it was on, we’ll, we’ll put a, we’ll have a link to this, um, in the notes, but, um, on October 31st, 2022 K, Fox 14 had a headline that says, K Fox goes, got, goes ghost hunting at the Double Eagle in Old Mesilla, and says, what did we find? And the findings were conclusive. There were ghosts in the room. Um, one of the, um, managers, uh, the office manager at the Double Eagle took, took the, the reporters into the Carlotta room, which they all call the Ghost Room. And in the Ghost room, their presence was definitely very much felt. The food service manager says, you know, guys, some nights it’s creepier than others, but, um, Armando and Arnaz are said to keep both the employees and the customers entertained with things like objects moving from here to their lights, turning off footsteps. And, um, in one story that I read, um, one of the former, um, managers named Yvonne Thomason said that, um, early in her career as the manager at the Golden Eagle in February of 86, um, her responsibility at the end of the day was turning off all the lights, setting the alarms, leaving. And she, um, finished her work for the evening and walked into the kitchen and made her way to the back door where her car was parked. And, and upon entering the kitchen, she noticed that there was a knife on the floor. She said, you know, the chefs are really careful about their tools.

Bunny : (09:29)
So to have a large but butcher knife in the middle of the kitchen floor was really unusual. And as she bit down to pick up the knife, she felt someone looking at her, and she turned her head and saw a small woman about four six standing by the door that led into the Carlotta salon from the kitchen and holding up, holding onto the knife. She says she straightened up quickly and faced this woman, and she had her hair up high on her head, held together with a long old fashioned hairpin, and she had her back to Yvonne. And she noticed Yvonne noticed her long black skirt and her long sleeve blouse, and she was able to see directly through the blouses and, and through the woman, and she realized that she was totally transparent. Yvonne says that this apparition stood not more than eight feet away from her without saying a word. She left the kitchen and walked into the dining room named the Carlota Salon. And that the odd thing about the way that she walked was that she glided across the floor as if on roller skates. And as she as, as Yvonne continued to watch her, she saw that she had no noticeable feet or legs. And, and Yvonne was scared to death, left the building and raised home. And then later the same thing happened, except this, when she went into the kitchen, there were knives all over the floor. You know, after the chefs had very carefully put all the knives away, Yvonne was surprised to see that there were several knives thrown on the floor.

Bunny : (11:12)
And this is the story that’s told over and over that people who work at the Double Eagle will hear, um, someone in a strange voice calling their name, they will turn, and there won’t be anybody in the room. One waitress tells a story of how she went into the Carlotta room to serve coffee, to three women sitting at a table. And as she set the coffee cups down, they were moved with no, um, human hands touching them across the table. She said, of course, of course, the patrons got up and ran out of the room. But I wanna go back to what happened with K Fox 14 when they were at the house, um, at the restaurant, they, um, set up a rim pod, which is a device used in paranormal investigations, and it makes a beeping noise when there’s spirit activity, and that indicates that ghosts are communicating with you. And so, Scott, who at the time was the manager, they set up the rem pod device, and then he said, Scott called out to the ghost and said, Armando and Inez come and join us. So the lights on the rem pod flickered without anybody touching them. And then the, the reporter whose name was Golden said it got really, really cold. And then they asked Armando and Iness to tell them what had happened to them. So the, at the moment that they did that, the Rim pod beeped for several seconds without pausing or delay. And then Golden, who was the reporter, went into the Carlota room alone and turned off all the lights to continue the investigation. And suddenly an orb flew by on a night vision camera, and a few seconds later, another flew by as well. And at one point, the reporter said that she saw a shadow hanging over one of the chairs sitting in the corner of the room.

Bunny : (13:06)
So it said that those, that there are two, um, Brocade Victorian chairs that sit in the corner of the Carlotta room, and it’s, it’s said that those are the ghost lovers’ chairs, and they don’t like when you sit in there. And a lot of people have reported nightmares after sitting in them. In fact, some people say that the chairs are worn, even though they’re not frequently set in, worn in the shape of two young people, one larger than the other. So, so the story that I get over and over is that there are spirits at the Double Eagle and Macia, mainly Armando and, and Ines, although there are people that say that, um, Carlotta’s Ghost is there as well, because she’s still so enraged by the fact that her son Armando chose to fall in love with Inez. Who was the hired help. Who knows? The ghost story about the Double Legal. Um, one of the other accounts that I read was, um, one young man, one, one guy who was a, a cop in, um, Las Cruces at the time, said that they would get called out all the time. The motion cameras in on the alarm at the double legal would indicate that there was activity. And, um, this guy says, I remember one summer when I received three separate calls to investigate the restaurant. And the calls indicated that the burglar alarms in the restaurant had been activated, and the calls always came in between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM and the police would roll in and, um, the marshals would come in first and then the sheriffs, and they would always, there would never be indication of forced entry. Um, a restaurant manager would always accompany them, and they then they would call, they would comb the entire building from top to bottom.

Bunny : (15:12)
And no evidence of an intruder was ever found. The only unexplained evidence that this gentleman who worked for the police department said they would turn on the lights and walk into the kitchen, and practically all the kitchen lives would, knives would be laying on the floor as if thrown about. And the chefs, they would interview the chefs, and the chefs would say, our knives are the most valuable tool we work with. We would never, ever throw them about. So, um, and he says, as a child, growing up in Las Cruces, they all knew the local stories of ghost haunting the restaurant. And, and one of the stories is of a ghost who makes itself known to people when things did not lose it. But he said, I don’t recall the exact details of the story, but I always felt that something was there in the restaurant a, a presence. And he said, I never went into the restaurant that I didn’t get goosebumps. So, um, that’s just one more official account of the ghosts that are hanging out at the Double Eagle. I wanna hear from people who have gone there. I’d love to hear in the comments and, um, let us know if you’re gonna be there on Halloween, because that would be a, an incredibly interesting time to be at the Double Eagle Restaurant in Macia. We’ll include some pictures. They, we have included some pictures of the restaurant and links to the stories that we read, and we can’t wait to hear what you have to say about the guests, the, the guests who are also ghosts at the Double Eagle Restaurant in Macia. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to the I Love New Mexico podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this, enjoyed, please feel free to share it with your friends on social media or by texting or messaging or emailing them a copy of the podcast. If you have a New Mexico story that you’d like to share with us, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our email address is I love New Mexico blog@gmail.com, and we are always, always looking for interesting stories about New Mexico. Subscribe, share, and write a review so that we can continue to bring you these stories about the Land of Enchantment. Thank you so much.