The Palace Restaurant – A Brief History
Over the course of almost 200 years, the Palace location has been home to one form of entertainment or another. Beginning in 1835, Maria Gertrudis “Tules” Barcelo – commonly known as Doña Tules – opened an opulently decorated casino and hotel spanning Burro Alley, between Palace Avenue and San Francisco Street. Tradesmen, miners, soldiers and travelers on the Old Santa Fe Trail frequented her luxurious establishment, gambling away their hard-earned gold, and enjoying the company of La Tules’ courtesans. At the onset of the Mexican-American War in 1846, La Tules was at the peak of her career as a madam and erstwhile dealer of Monte, a popular card game at the time, amassing a fortune substantial enough to offer loans to the American commanding officers to pay their troops (who eventually would lose the money back to her at the tables). She continued to rise in Santa Fe society as a person of status and wealth, eventually leaving a sizable fortune in cash and real estate holdings upon her death in 1852. .