The Santa Fe Railway built shops in Albuquerque in the 1880s. The buildings that remain were put up between 1915 and 1925, and the shops became the city's biggest employer, with 970 workers in 1919 and a peak of 1,500 in the 1940s.
The main job was steam locomotive maintenance. Each locomotive needed a full rebuild every 12 to 18 months, and the shops finished about 40 overhauls a month at their peak.
The huge erection and machine shop was designed in 1920 and built in eight months, starting in February 1921. It covers about 165,000 square feet, with a main bay 604 feet long, 57 feet high and a crane that can lift 250 tons. Work declined in the 1950s as the railroad switched to diesel, and the shops later sat empty.