Category: Geography

Home Archive by category "Geography" (Page 6)

Chaco Canyon

Ancient Chaco\' s New History by Stephen H. Lekson Chaco is an arid, barren, sandstone canyon in the middle of nowhere. But a millennium ago, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D., ancient peoples not only survived there, they thrived and created an amazing city. Chaco\'s ruins awe us…

Taos Pueblo

  The Church of San Geronimo that is currently standing in the Pueblo Plaza is the third manifestation of the original church which was completed in 1619. It was then rebuilt following its destruction first during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and second during the war with Mexico in…

Isleta Pueblo

  Isleta Pueblo is located 13 miles south of Albuquerque and has an area of 211,002 acres and a population of over 3,000. The reservation includes the Manzano Mountains and the Rio Grande Valley.   Isleta means “Little Island” in Spanish while the pueblo’s traditional Tiwa name is “Tue-I.”…

Maxwell Land Grant

by William H. Wroth In January 1841, Guadalupe Miranda of Santa Fe and Charles Beaubien of Taos petitioned Governor Manuel Armijo for possession of a large tract of land east of Taos along the Cimarron and Canadian Rivers, extending westward to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Beaubien, a French…

Pojoaque Pueblo

Pojoaque Pueblo   Po-suwae-ge, "water drinking or gathering place" is the traditional Tewa name for Pojoaque Pueblo.   Pojaque Pueblo was first inhabited as early as 500 AD, but its population reached its peak in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.   With the arrival of the Spanish,…

La Bajada

La Bajada New Mexico, Santa Fe Trail, La Boca At what is traditionally the dividing point in New Mexico between Rio Arriba (Upper River district) and Rio Abajo (Lower River district) travelers on the Camino Real could choose one of three ways to reach Santa Fe. (1) La Bajada…

Lovington

Seventeen miles west of the Texas border, Lovington, the Queen City of the Plains, got its start and soul from the Lone Star state. Like many of his Texas compatriots, Robert Florence Love (1870-1942) first experienced the New Mexico territory during the waning years of open-range ranching, driving cattle…

Farmington

Farmington Main Street, Farmington By Claudia Smith Farmington is located sixty-one miles southeast of the point where New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah meet, known as the Four Corners region. Long before the first Anglo-American settler arrived in the region, the San Juan Valley was occupied by groups of…

Los Padillas

Juan Candelaria recalled Los Padillas being settled in 1710 (Armijo 1929:280-281). It appeared in the 1802 census (Olmsted 1981:142-143). Wislizenus mentioned this as a hacienda south of Alburquerque on 19 July 1846. He was on the east side of the Río Grande, and noted that the more verdant west…