| Still home to one of the longest-established Native American populations in the United States, though transformed by becoming first a Spanish colonial outpost, and more recently a hangout for bohemian artists and New Age dropouts, TAOS (which rhymes with mouse) has become famous out of all proportion to its size. Just six thousand people live in its three component parts: Taos itself, around the plaza; sprawling Ranchos de Taos, three miles to the south; and the Native American community of Taos Pueblo, two miles north. Beyond the usual unsightly highway sprawl, Taos is a delight to visit. As well as museums, galleries and stores to match Santa Fe, it still offers an unhurried pace and charm, and the sense of a meeting place between Pueblo, Hispanic and American cultures. Its reputation as an arts colony began at the end of the nineteenth century, with the arrival of painter Joseph Henry Sharp. He was soon joined by two young New Yorkers, Bert Phillips and Ernest L. Blumenschein; legend has it that their wagon lost a wheel outside Taos as they headed for Mexico in 1898, and they liked it so much they never got round to leaving. The three men formed the nucleus of the Taos Society of Artists, established in 1915. Soon afterwards, society heiress and arts patron Mabel Dodge arrived, and married an Indian from the Pueblo to become Mabel Dodge Luhan. She in turn wrote a fan letter to English novelist D.H. Lawrence, who visited three times in the early 1920s; his widow Frieda made her home in Taos after his death. New generations of artists and writers have "discovered" Taos ever since, but the most famous of all was Georgia O'Keeffe, who stayed for a few years at the end of the 1920s. Her renditions of the church at Ranchos de Taos in particular were a major influence on contemporary Southwestern art.
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