Red Hot For The Crowd

Las Vegas pioneers loved their Chile Colorado with a spicy kick!

- Sherry Monahan

In 1879, when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe chugged into Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory, the railroad brought in a wide variety of food that rivaled the delicacies found in the California streets of San Francisco.

Playing off recipes developed by local Mexican natives, the Exchange hotel offered a regional dish of Chile Colorado in 1882, which The Las Vegas Gazette described as “... nothing more or less than stewed red peppers.”

But the Exchange’s chef, Paul Crawford, made his Chile Colorado more spicy than stew. Before the meal was over, he had to cool down his customers by bringing them “…an armful of fans and seventeen buckets of ice water. Oh! he made it red hot for the whole crowd.”