By J. Mark Sublette Farming in this high desert climate was always a challenge. Shortly after founding Santa Fe in 1610, the Spanish built an irrigation canal above the River, parallel to Canyon Road. Still in use, this Acequia Madre, or "mother ditch," brought precious water out of the…
Union County Courthouse; Court Street, Clayton, New Mexico; Union County The Union County Courthouse sits on a slight rise southwest of Clayton’s business district; its shiny silver dome visible for blocks. Constructed in 1909 to replace an earlier courthouse destroyed by a tornado, the Union County Courthouse designed to…
St. Catherine's Industrial Indian School Situated on a hill northwest of the Santa Fe Plaza, overlooking two cemeteries, is perhaps the largest adobe building in the Southwest. With more than three stories and a façade of sturdy gables and a spindly bell tower, the 1887 Main Building is the…
Judge Seaman Field House; Deming, New Mexico Across the street from the 1917 Deming Armory (a three-story, red-brick government building with an imposing façade), the Judge Seaman Field House, a low, white residence with shingled roof and decorative gable windows is literally a building from another era. With initial…
Holm Bursom House; Socorro New Mexico Located at the end of a residential block and surrounded by a white picket fence, this house on Church Street in Socorro, with its red brick construction, gabled roof and Victorian details, looks out of place on a street of low slung, adobe-like…
Chaves County Courthouse; National Register of Historic Places, SRCP #1019 Statehood period of significance: 1911-1912 Built as a replacement courthouse, the 1911 Chaves County Courthouse, designed by Isaac Hamilton Rapp in the progressive Beaux-Arts style, signaled the ambitions of this new county and its presumed place in statehood. The…
By Linda Aldrich In 1942, when the WWII Manhattan Project took over the Los Alamos Ranch School and adjoining ranches and homesteads on the Pajarito Plateau, the Corps of Engineers was responsible for setting up and operating the town of Los Alamos and the Project facilities. The University of…
In the Four Corners region of the state, the traditional houses of the Diné (Navajo) dot the landscape. While styles vary across time periods and are influenced by available materials, a hogan almost always opens to the East to greet the sun, and is most commonly a one-room circular…
By Robert J. Torrez Spanish missions were churches established by Franciscan Friars in Indian villages called pueblos, the Spanish word for town. The purpose of these missions was to have a place in each pueblo where the Indians could be taught about Christianity. When New Mexico was settled by…
Albuquerque's 20th century suburban growth by David Kammer From its inception as a railroad town in 1880, Albuquerque has undergone continuous growth. During its first two decades much of that growth occurred within the 3.1 square miles of the original town site, with the earliest residential sections appearing on…
