Still looking for the genesis story, the Lodge at Cloudcroft

In 1993 the Alamogordo Daily News ran an article entitled” Alamogordo native reflects on past, present, and future of his 90-year life”. The article is about Paul Hernandez who spent most of his life as an employee of the Lodge, working continuously there for 61 years. He has many fond memories of working for Mr. Hutchins, who was the manager of the Lodge from 1915 to 1932.

At that time the Lodge was only open during the summer and would be shut down during the cold winter months. Paul Hernandez was 15 years old at the time and was given the job of closing down and opening up the facility each year. The article continues with Hernandez talking about the ghost at the Lodge.

“I can’t say that we had a ghost living at the Lodge when I worked there but I did have one peculiar experience. Once, while staying in the place to watch it for the winter, I thought for a moment, perhaps, that the spirit that some say inhabits the place was really there,” he said.

Hearing music coming from the downstairs bar, Hernandez took a light along with him and went down to check things out. He laughs as he recalls finding the source of the music to be a tiny mouse that seemed just as frightened of him as he had made the young lad.”

What makes the article interesting is that it supports both arguments. On the one hand, you have an employee who has been at the Lodge for an extended period of time who doesn’t think that a ghost was there. On the other hand, his amusing story does validate that a ghost was rumored to be at the Lodge in the 1920’s or early 1930’s. However, this is a man who was employed at the Lodge when the back-story of the Rebecca legend takes place. If there would have been a grisly murder or a chambermaid had mysteriously vanished, he would have known about it and mentioned it during this interview when he was asked about the ghost.

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