[3] About 1827–1829 Simeon settled in Arroyo Hondo and established the mill and distillery as a popular trading post and "watering hole.

[8] On the south side of the Rio Hondo on a bluff overlooking the large Turley Mill and Distillery was a long building housing the various employees, e.g., the coopers, the millers, the blacksmiths, the weavers, the farmers, the ranchers, etc.

[14] Benjamin Turley had served as a private in the American War for Independence under Colonel Archibald Orme's Regiment, Middle Battalion, Montgomery County, Maryland.

[17] Stephen and Jesse are purported to have led an 1826 merchant caravan that carried 16-year-old Kit Carson, a longtime family friend, from Franklin, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

[18] Simeon's role in the Santa Fe Trail commerce was that of setting up a trading post in New Mexico thus creating a steady flow of business for the Turley brothers to transport goods to and from Missouri.

"In 1843, Simeon Turley in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico wrote to his brother Jesse in Arrow Rock, Missouri that he was shipping him '200 buffalo robes and a load of beaver.'

"[21] Simeon was apparently well-liked by locals and traders and was described by George Ruxton, who had visited the distillery just a couple of days before it was destroyed, as one who would open up his graneries to the hungry and his purse to the poor.

They signed the estate settlement papers on October 11, 1847[31] In 1830, the consumption of alcohol in the United States peaked at 7.1 gallons annually per capita.

[33] The Anglo mountain men and traders and Hispanic residents of New Mexico were also large consumers of Turley's product, which was later called "Taos Lightening."

John Brown at his trading post in the Greenwood Valley of Colorado bought whiskey for $2.25 per gallon and sold it for $1.00 per pint, a markup of more than 300 percent.