by Dave Warren

Martin’s General Store, El Rito, New Mexico

A preliminary historical reconstruction

I found considerably more information on Martin’s Store than is immediately apparent from ordinary searches. The store was not simply a small grocery; for most of the twentieth century it functioned as one of El Rito’s principal commercial and social landmarks. The evidence also suggests something important about the building itself: the structure appears to predate the Martin family’s ownership and was probably associated with the Sargent mercantile business before it became Martin’s.

Martin’s Store today

The surviving building is at 1213 State Road 554. Property records used by Realtor.com give a construction date of 1912, although that date is identified as owner-supplied rather than derived from an architectural survey. The building retains the enormous painted MARTIN’S sign across its upper façade, together with “EL RITO NEW MEXICO” and the village elevation.

Before Martin’s: the Sargent connection

The strongest evidence I found indicates that Martin’s grew out of an older mercantile tradition in El Rito. A transcription of Polk’s Arizona and New Mexico Pictorial State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1912–1913 lists several El Rito businesses. Among them were the El Rito Mercantile Company, a general store operated by Martin Lopez, and, most significantly, “Sargent, J.H., gen store.” It also lists Sargent & Gorzalls operating a saloon.

That 1912 directory entry is significant because later Martin family history says that George Martin eventually became a partner in the Sargent general store. A 2014 obituary for George Martin's son John states specifically that after the family returned to El Rito, George “became a partner in the Sargent general store” and later bought Sargent out.

A photograph of the building taken in 2016 likewise identifies it as having originally been known as the Sargent General Store, although that caption is a photographer's historical description rather than a primary document.

Taken together, these sources suggest a likely sequence:

The most detailed surviving family account comes from a 2025 interview with Michael “Mike” Martin, grandson of George Martin Sr. Mike recalled that his grandfather returned to El Rito in 1925, entered a partnership with a man he remembered as John Sargent/“Sergeant,” and subsequently went into business on his own at the present Martin’s location about 1930.

An important correction to some modern descriptions

Some real-estate descriptions call the property the “1912 Martin’s General Mercantile.” That appears to compress two separate pieces of history. The building may indeed date from approximately 1912, but the Martin family could not have been operating it continuously under the Martin name from that date: family testimony says George Martin left El Rito in 1914 and did not return until 1925, while the 1912–13 business directory specifically identifies J. H. Sargent as an El Rito general-store proprietor. The safer historical conclusion is therefore:

The building probably dates from the Sargent mercantile period and became Martin’s after George Martin entered the Sargent business and eventually took it over.

A deed search through Rio Arriba County would be the best way to prove the exact transfer and date.

George and Margaret Martin

George Martin's connection to El Rito began before his career as a merchant. According to his grandson Michael, George came from Alsace-Lorraine, had attended Manhattan College in New York, and came west in part because of concerns about his health. His education and language skills led him to El Rito's newly established teacher-training institution, the Spanish American Normal School. Michael Martin remembered his grandfather serving as the school's first principal in 1910 and later as president.

George married Margaret Allen in 1912. Margaret was an Irish-born nurse who became an important figure in her own right in El Rito. Known affectionately as “Dambo,” she operated a maternal and child health-care center in the village. George and Margaret raised five children: John, Tom, Roberta, George and Pat.

This helps explain why Martin’s became intertwined with so many aspects of village life. The Martin family was involved not only in commerce but also in education, ranching and health care.

What could you buy at Martin’s?

Martin’s was a genuine old-style general store, particularly valuable in an isolated rural community where a trip to Española was once a considerable undertaking. Michael Martin remembered groceries, hardware, dry goods, horseshoes, plumbing supplies, livestock feed and candy. The store also sold gasoline. The 2025 account mentions nails, screws, bolts, hammers, buckets, rope, medicines, dishes, soap, lanterns, chicken feed and kitchen supplies.

In its earlier years, Martin’s operated much differently from a modern supermarket. A customer did not necessarily walk the aisles and fill a cart. Instead, the customer could give a list to the clerk behind the counter, who gathered and weighed the requested goods. Eventually Martin’s adopted more of the self-service system familiar today.

The store employed local people as well. A comment attached to the Martin family interview from Evangeline Martinez recalls working there during summers with Greg and Josie Martin. Another El Rito resident, Raymond Ortega, recalled Greg Martin extending credit to him as a teenager so that he could buy a chainsaw, with the agreement secured largely by a down payment and a handshake. Ortega also remembered men drinking coffee and visiting in the back of the store, Lala Vasquez working the register, and the butcher, gas pumps and garage operations. Those are personal recollections rather than independently documented records, but they illustrate the place the store occupied in community memory.

More than a store: a village landmark

One of the most interesting pieces of evidence I found comes from an oral history preserved by the University of New Mexico. Dr. Richard E. Brubaker described making rural obstetrical calls in northern New Mexico during the mid-twentieth century. Roads often had no names, and doctors depended upon recognizable landmarks where families could meet them and guide them to remote homes.

For El Rito, Brubaker remembered that patients' families would meet him in front of Martin’s Store. That small detail is important. It shows that Martin’s was so well known that it functioned as a geographic reference point for the entire village—not simply as a business.

Its location near the post office reinforced that role. Residents could come into the central part of El Rito to collect mail, purchase groceries and hardware, buy feed, get gasoline and visit with neighbors. Martin’s effectively served as an informal community gathering place.

The Martin generations

George Martin Sr. eventually passed the commercial side of the family enterprise to the next generation. His son Tom Martin ran the store, followed by Tom's son Greg Martin. Michael Martin recalled Greg operating it from approximately 1974 until its closure in 2009.

By the final decades of the twentieth century, however, rural retailing was changing. Better highways and greater automobile ownership meant El Rito residents could increasingly shop in Española, Abiquiú and other communities. Large stores could offer greater variety and lower prices. A general store that once served virtually every daily need now had to compete with businesses many miles away that were no longer perceived as prohibitively distant.

Martin’s nevertheless retained one particularly important service: gasoline. Family recollections indicate that it was the last place selling gasoline in El Rito when it closed. Afterward, residents had to travel elsewhere even to purchase fuel.

The closing of Martin’s — 2009

There is a small date discrepancy in the published record. The 2025 Abiquiu News article gives August 29, 2009 as the last day, but a photograph taken after the closure preserves the actual announcement that Greg and Josephine “Josie” Martin had placed in the store window.

That notice stated that Martin’s would close August 31, 2009, and said the business had served El Rito for more than eighty years. Because the surviving notice is effectively a contemporary primary source, August 31, 2009 is the date I would use for an El Rito Library exhibit.

Photographer Helen Orozco visited in January 2012. Looking through the windows, she found chairs, shelving, clocks, signs and merchandise still remaining and described the store as essentially a time capsule.

See Helen Orozco's 2012 photograph of Martin’s, including the closing notice

The building after the store closed

The old building survived rather than being demolished. Publicly reported property information lists it as a roughly 3,526-square-foot structure at 1213 State Road 554, built about 1912. Residential building, mechanical and electrical permits appear in 2017, showing the period when substantial conversion work was occurring.

The former store was eventually adapted for residential use while much of its historic exterior character was retained, most notably the huge MARTIN’S lettering. The property was listed for sale in October 2023 and sold on April 5, 2024.

That survival is fortunate. Despite losing its commercial function, the building remains one of the most immediately recognizable pieces of El Rito's twentieth-century streetscape.