Santa Fe Loop

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National Geographic Driving Guide: Southwest

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Santa Fe is America’s second oldest city and the chief guardian of New Mexico’s cherished multicultural heritage. Nearby, Tesuque and Nambe Pueblos keep a foot firmly planted in prehistory; Cimarron and Raton can look back no further than Wild West days. Stone spearpoints found near Folsom proved hunters roamed this region 10,000 years ago. Fort Union protected Santa Fe Trail travelers until the railroads replaced covered wagons and turned watering holes into prosperous cities like Las Vegas, still decorated by its 19th-century Victorian buildings. Seasonal changes bring migratory birds back to area marshlands, but nothing will return life to the ruins of Pecos, perhaps the greatest Southwest pueblo community ever, a casualty of Spanish colonial zeal. CONTINUED

- Santa Fe
- Nambe Pueblo
- Cimarron
- Capulin
- Clayton Lake State Park
- Fort Union National Monument
- Pecos National Historical Park

(Continued From Top)

Santa Fe
In 1610 provincial governor Don Pedro de Peralta established his new capital at 7,000 feet [2,133.6 meters] in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, making Santa Fe (Visitor Center +1 505 984 6760 or 800 777-2489), the oldest seat of government in the United States. Peralta’s adobe headquarters in the Palace of the Governors (+1 505 827 6483. Tues.-Sun.; Adm. fee) forms the northern perimeter of Santa Fe’s historical Plaza and has been in public service longer than any building in America.
Santa Fe’s first and finest pueblo revival building is the nearby Museum of Fine Arts (107 W. Palace Ave. +1 505 827 4468. Tues.-Sun.; Adm. fee. Note: Many Santa Fe museums are affiliated, offering four-day entrance passes to all), setting the standard for the style since 1917. The regional art exhibited here includes many works by Georgia O’Keeffe and stars from the Santa Fe and Taos art colonies. Portions of its huge photography collection are also on display.
According to legend, prayer brought about the completion of the French Romanesque Loretto Chapel (211 Old Santa Fe Trail. +1 505 984 7971. Adm. fee), just south of the Plaza. Its French architect modeled the church after Paris’s Sainte Chapelle, and French and Italian stonemasons began work in 1873. But the designer died without completing stairs to the choir loft, leaving Loretto’s Catholic sisters to beseech God. In 1877 an aged, bearded carpenter arrived on a donkey and built the Miraculous Staircase, which spirals upward without a center pole. He then disappeared without requesting payment.
Nearby St. Francis Cathedral (231 Cathedral Pl. +1 505 982 5619), a French Romanesque edifice begun in 1869, reflects the taste of French-born archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who energized New Mexican Catholicism from Santa Fe by riding from church to church. He’s buried beneath the alt ar, watched over by perhaps the oldest representation of the Madonna in North America, and enjoying a secular immortality as the model for Willa Cather’s novel Death Comes for the Archbishop.
A walk to Santuario Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (100 Guadalupe St. +1 505 988 2027. May-Oct. Mon.-Sat., Nov.-April Mon.-Fri.), three blocks southwest of the Plaza, takes you through the shops and restaurants of the Guadalupe Historic District. The California mission-style church, built between 1776 and 1796, has survived revolution, fire, and atrocious remodeling (at one point into a New England-style schoolhouse). The museum exhibits 17th-century paintings and a photographic church history.

Follow the Santa Fe River east to the State Capitol Building (Old Santa Fe Trail and Paseo de Peralta. +1 505 986 4589. Mem. Day-Labor Day, Mon.-Sat.; Labor Day-Mem. Day, Mon.-Fri.). Its circular design was inspired by the Pueblo people’s Zia sun symbol (also on the state flag), representing the four compass points, the seasons, and four stages of life.
Just down the street stands the San Miguel Mission (401 Old Santa Fe Trail. +1 505 983 3974). The little church was Santa Fe’s first, and a circa 1628 document accusing New Mexico’s governor of “impious conduct during the Mass” establishes it as North America’s oldest church structure. Wooden rafters (called vigas), as thick as telephone poles, support its high ceilings. One of the oldest neighborhoods in the United States is just around the corner, the Barrio d’Analco, where houses date from the early 1600s.
Santa Fe is one of the most active art markets in the country. Much of that business takes place on Canyon Road (E off Paseo de Peralta). The old Indian trail looks down-at-the-heel in places, but many of the city’s leading galleries, restaurants, and craft shops line the narrow pavement.

At the top of Canyon Road is Cristo Rey Church (1120 Canyon Rd. +1 505 983 8528), a perfect expression of pueblo revival architecture and the largest adobe building in the United States. Don’t be disappointed that it dates only from 1940, for no Southwest church was built with more loving attention to traditional details. Parishioners made the 150,000 bricks of mud and straw used in its construction. The sanctuary features an ornate, 18th-century carved stone altar screen, orphaned when a Spanish Colonial-era military chapel on the Plaza was razed. It weighs 250 tons [250 metric tons].
To visit three of Santa Fe’s most interesting museums, take the Old Santa Fe Trail about 2 miles [3.2 kilometers] south from the Plaza, following museum signs to Camino Lejo. Fortunately for the rest of us, Florence Dibell Bartlett collected folk art—costumes, pottery, metalwork, carvings—whatever people around the world made from whimsy, wood, and everything else. She donated a museum and her 4,500-piece collection to New Mexico, founding the Museum of International Folk Art (706 Camino Lejo. +1 505 827 6350. Tues.-Sun.; Adm. fee) in 1953. In 1978 a kindred soul bequeathed 106,000 items, confirming the museum’s status as the world’s premier showcase of things made by hand to amuse, instruct, and simply decorate. You’ll never forget this place.
The adjoining Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (704 Camino Lejo. +1 505 982 4636. Donations) mimics the circular shape of a Navajo hogan. Exhibits run the gamut of art types to present the highest levels of creative achievement in Native American communities. The museum store re-creates the look of an old-time Southwest trading post.
Contemporary artistic trends among New Mexico’s Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache people regularly refresh exhibits at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (710 Camino Lejo. +1 505 827 6344. Tue s.-Sun.; Adm. fee). Artists demonstrate their craft and discuss the traditions represented in their work.

Nambe Pueblo
Northbound on US 84/285 from Santa Fe, you’ll soon see the eroded sandstone formations marking Tesuque Pueblo (+1 505 983 2667), where Tewa-speaking people have lived since A.D. 1200. The village played a leading role in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and is still strongly attached to its aboriginal heritage. People travel from afar to nearby Nambe Pueblo (New Mexico 4. +1 505 455 2036) for the silver jewelry and pottery sold here, along with Nambe’s trademark cooking pots of sparkling mica-rich clay. About two dozen of the pueblo’s pre-20th-century adobes survive.
Drive to Taos, then turn east on US 64. This road climbs through Carson National Forest (+1 505 758 6390) to 9,101-foot [2,774-meter] Palo Flechado Pass, dropping into the grassland basin of Moreno Valley near the ski resort town of Angel Fire (Chamber of Commerce +1 505 377 6661 or 800 446 8117).
America’s first monument to those who served in Vietnam rises on a knoll just north of the junction of US 64 and New Mexico 434. The small chapel of the DAV Vietnam Veterans National Memorial (+1 505 377 6900. May-Sept. Tues.-Sun., Oct.-April Wed.-Sun.), dedicated in 1971, was built by a local family mourning the loss of a soldier son.

Cimarron
Wheel ruts score the terrain where the Santa Fe Trail passes west of Cimarron (Chamber of Commerce +1 505 376 2417). From the late 1860s to about 1880, the town had quite a reputation for gunplay—more than two dozen murders took place at the St. James Hotel (+1 505 376 2664), opened in 1880 and refurbished to its original style (but keeping the bullet holes in the dining room ceiling).
Colfax County history is the focus of the Old Aztec Mill Museum (+1 505 376 2913. May Sat.-Sun., June-Aug. Fri.-Wed.; Adm. fee), a four-story brick pile put up in 1864 by land tycoon Lucien Maxwell, who founded Cimarron in 1848 as the base of his 1.7-million-acre [687,965.6-hectare] empire. The gristmill is full of old clothing, photographs, Native American artifacts, antique furniture, and historical curios.
Maxwell’s domain reached to Raton (Chamber of Commerce +1 505 445 3689), a pleasant town built by coal mining, railroading, and ranching. Exhibits at the Raton Museum (216 S. First St. +1 505 445 8979. Wed.-Sat.) concentrate on those enterprises. The city has about 70 vintage buildings and publishes a walking tour guide to the Raton Historical District, centering around First and Second Streets.

Capulin
The mesas around Capulin are capped with lava from eruptions ending about 62,000 years ago. The thousand-foot [304.8-meter] cinder cone of Capulin Volcano National Monument (+1 505 278 2201. Adm. fee) is one of the country’s most symmetrical. The 2-mile [3.2-kilometer] drive to the rim brings you to 8,120 feet [2,475 meters] and views embracing five states. Those faint lines to the southeast are old wagon tracks, from a supply route to Fort Union.
Continue north on New Mexico 325 to Folsom, then take New Mexico 72 west to the Folsom Man Site. Here in 1926 excavation began on a site where ranch foreman George McJunkin found chipped stone points among bones newly exposed by erosion in Dead Horse Gulch. Archaeologists identified them as extinct bison skeletons and recovered 19 projectile points that established a human presence in North America going back at least 9,500 years. (Conventional wisdom then said 4,000 years.) A small museum exhibits replicas of Folsom points and tools.
Clayton (Chamber of Commerce +1 505 374 9253) was established in the mid-1880s as a cattle-shipping point and is still at it, earning extra money by extracting carbon dioxide from nearby Bravo Dome, said to be the world’s largest reserve. Check out the dining room and bar of the Eklund Hotel (15 Main St. +1 505 374 2551), built in 1892 and little changed. Clayton’s weekly cattle auction is interesting to watch as buyers from five states bid for the beef.

Clayton Lake State Park
Dinosaurs once roamed 12 miles [19.3 kilometers] northwest of town (via New Mexico 370), leaving their fearsome footprints at what is now Clayton Lake State Park (+1 505 374 8808. Adm. fee). There are so many, in fact, it looks as if they danced a fandango. Follow signs along a half-mile [0.8-kilometer] trail to the 100-million-year-old tracks, discovered in the early 1980s.
Before hooking west, drive a few miles east of Clayton on US 64 to the Kiowa National Grasslands (+1 505 374 9652). The West was once thickly tufted with tall native bunchgrass, now nearly erased by farming and the dust storms of the 1930s. Preserves like this resemble primordial North American prairies. There aren’t any signs; just look for greenish clumps on the landscape.
Begun in 1879, the imposing Second Empire county courthouse in Springer (Chamber of Commerce +1 505 483 2998) houses the Santa Fe Trail Museum (6th St. and Maxwell Ave. Mem. Day-Labor Day; Adm. fee), which focuses on everyday 19th-century pioneer life, poignantly evoked by ordinary things like clothes, cooking utensils, and furniture.

Fort Union National Monument
In territorial days, meat brokering was a lucrative trade, and the area’s most sought-after account was the Army’s garrison at Fort Union National Monument (New Mexico 161 off I-25. +1 505 425 8025. Adm. fee). Established in 1851 to protect the Santa Fe Trail from Indian attack, the forlorn expanse of freestanding chimneys, stone foundations, and crumbled adobe ruins was at one time the biggest military base in the Southwest. Exhibits in the territorial-style Visitor Center include historical maps and interesting military and trail memorabilia.
The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad’s arrival in 1879 transformed the water hole at Las Vegas (Chamber of Commerce +1 505 425 8631 or 800 832 5947) into New Mexico’s primary shipping terminus and largest city. In the early 1900s the AT&SF constructed shorter routes across the state, diverting traffic from Las Vegas, which went bust. Poverty made urban renewal impossible, resulting in five historic districts with over 900 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are so many styles of architecture here—adobe, Victorian, and territorial—that you really should spend an hour cruising the neighborhoods. The Downtown Plaza District has adobes from prerailroad days. Use the city’s free guide to buildings here and along Bridge Street, a block east.
Why is the Rough Riders Memorial (725 N. Grand Ave. +1 505 425 8726. Mon.-Fri.) in Las Vegas? Because in 1899 Teddy Roosevelt attended a reunion of his Spanish-American War buddies at the Castaneda Hotel here. The memorial has souvenirs from T.R.’s Cuban adventure, which made him a national hero.
Though an avid hunter, Teddy championed federal protection for prairie wetlands like those in the 8,700-acre [3,520.8-hectare] Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge (+1 505 425 3581). Its proximity to the Continental Divide attracts thou sands of migratory birds from both the western and eastern United States—at least 244 species, including Canada geese, sandhill cranes, and bald eagles—which use the reedy haven as a rest stop. A 7-mile [11.3-kilometer] scenic drive probes the watery wilderness. The mile [1.6-kilometer]-long nature trail affords a close encounter with birds and beasts (such as coyote), but requires a permit from the refuge office.

Pecos National Historical Park

Pueblo ruins, Pecos National Historic Park

Photograph © Danny Lehman

Coronado’s log described the “nearly 500 warriors” of the fortresslike pueblo at Pecos National Historical Park (Off I-25. +1 505 757 6414. Adm. fee) as “feared throughout the land.” Called Cicuye by the Spanish, the red stone community peaked in the mid-15th century as the Southwest’s preeminent pueblo trading center, where Rio Grande Valley pueblos bartered with nomadic hunters from the Great Plains. About 2,000 people occupied an apartment-like complex of some 1,000 rooms reaching five stories. Disease and hostile tribes reduced its population to 17 in 1838, when the survivors emigrated to join the Jemez Pueblo. Stop by the Visitor Center first; the interpretive information and short film will make your stroll through the pueblo and mission ruins much more meaningful.