J. B. Block Sandoval County, New Mexico

J. B. Block, proprietor of the famous Block's Hotel at Jemez Hot Springs, New Mexico, where he has resided for the past twenty-one years, came to New Mexico from Colorado in 1880. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, his grandparents being among the first white settlers of that place when it was only an Indian trading post, he left St. Louis in 1874 and spent all the time from 1874 to 1885 in train service of the railroads of the west, and running railroad eating houses. He opened up the first railroad eating house on the old Atlantic & Pacific Railroad in 1881, at Coolidge, New Mexico. He went to Jemez Hot Springs in 1885 and opened up a general merchandise store and hotel, and started a stage line to Albuquerque. He conducted the stage line during the summer season, until the last seven years, when he got the mail contract between here and Albuquerque. Since then, in connection with carrying the mail, the stage has been run all the year around. The mail contract expired July 1, 1900 so he is no longer running the stage.

Mr. Block's hotel is known most favorably all through New Mexico and Arizona. Mrs. Block being the mainstay of the hotel. He owns the larger part of the town site, which was laid out by Jose Francisco Archuleta in 1884. Mr. Block got the post office established here under Cleveland's first administration, and the office was called Archuleta, in honor of the founder of the town site. Mr. Block was postmaster until sometime during Harrison's administration.

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Source: History of New Mexico, Its Resources and People, Volume II, Pacific States Publishing Co., 1907.