The Santa Fe Trail in New Mexico
Our interest in the Santa Fe Trail was piqued by our stay in the “City Different” so as we headed out of New Mexico on I-25 we decided to stop at two related sites along the way. Our first stop was just twenty-five miles east of Santa Fe at Pecos National Historical Park while our second stop was at Fort Union National Monument. Their locations along the Santa Fe Trail, which followed old Native American paths, means that their histories are intertwined.
The stories share a common thread, that of the exchange of goods and ideas. We’ll start first with the story that had the longest timeline, that of the people who built Pecos Pueblo. They had first moved into the Pecos River Valley around 800 AD, living in small, scattered villages. Sometime in the late 1300s the residents of the area joined together and began building a large five-story pueblo on a mesilla. It soon became the largest pueblo of the time with well over 2,000 residents and a fighting force of 500 warriors.
The key to the success of Pecos was, as they say in real estate, location, location, location. The pueblo was just east of Glorieta Pass, a break in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. To the west were the rest of the Puebloan people and the agriculturally rich Rio Grande Valley while to the east roamed the tribes of the Great Plains. Both groups had resources of great value to offer each other and Pecos Pueblo with its strategic location controlled the trade.
Much of the pueblo’s story from the mid-1500s on is well-known for not only did the Spanish explorers and other passersby write about the city but there were extensive archaeological excavations and (this last part just blows my mind) there are still living descendants from Pecos Pueblo. The last residents of Pecos did not leave until 1838!
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