Cerrillos developed along a route first used by Indians, then by Spanish and territorial travelers crossing the land between Rio Galisteo and Arroyo San Marcos, but the railroad ultimately made the town. Before rail service, travel and trade were difficult, and a trip from Santa Fe to Cerrillos often took an entire day. In 1871 Steven B. Elkins bought 606 acres of U.S. Government land along the Galisteo River to establish a town serving the coal and hard rock mining areas once the tracks arrived. That expectation helped spark the hard rock mining boom in the Cerrillos Hills beginning in January 1879, and the first tracks reached Cerrillos Station on February 15, 1880, with March 8 designated as Founder's Day. Fire destroyed every building on this block on June 23, 1890. Cerrillos gained electricity in 1901 from the Cochiti Gold Mining Co.'s plant in Madrid, and in 1905 it received its first telephone connection with Santa Fe, but as railroad construction ended and jobs became fewer outside track maintenance and Madrid, Cerrillos Station slowed. On February 10, 1904, fewer than 14 years after incorporation, qualified male voters chose by a vote of 23 to 8 to disincorporate. Cerrillos then declined into a quiet village on State Route 10, later SR-14, the Turquoise Trail, with its economy sustained mainly by the railroad and local mining, especially coal, while nearby Madrid became a company coal town in 1892 for the next 40 years. The Depression of 1930-1941 and World War II were hard on both communities, but they gradually evolved. Cerrillos remained a quiet bedroom community, while Madrid took on a second life as a hippie artist town, and today Cerrillos' old buildings and quiet character, together with Madrid's eclectic aesthetic, draw travelers to the Turquoise Trail as greater Cerrillos includes places such as Waldo Mesa, Goldmine Road, the Little Garden of the Gods, and San Marcos.