Pecos National Historic Site - Ruins of Pecos Pueblo

Pecos National Historical Park is a United States

National Historical Park National Historic Site (NHS) is a designation for an officially recognized area of national historic significance in the United States. An NHS usually contains a single historical feature directly associated with its subject. The National Historic ...

in San Miguel and Santa Fe Counties,

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

. The park, operated by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

, encompasses thousands of acres of landscape infused with historical elements from prehistoric archaeological ruins to 19th-century ranches, to a battlefield of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. Its largest single feature is Pecos Pueblo also known as Cicuye Pueblo, a Native American community abandoned in historic times. First a state monument in 1935, it was made Pecos National Monument in 1965, and greatly enlarged and renamed in 1990. Two sites within the park, the pueblo and the

Glorieta Pass Battlefield The Glorieta Pass Battlefield was the site of an American Civil War battle that ended Confederate ambitions to cut off the West from the Union. The Battle of Glorieta Pass took place on March 26–28, 1862, at Glorieta Pass, on the Santa Fe Trai ...

, are

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

Features

Pecos National Historical Park's main unit is located in western San Miguel County, about east of Santa Fe and just south of Pecos.

Pecos Pueblo

The main unit of the park preserves the ruins of Pecos

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

, known historically as Cicuye (sometimes spelled Ciquique), the "village of 500 warriors". The first Pecos pueblo was one of two dozen rock-and-mud villages built in the valley around AD 1100 in the prehistoric Pueblo II Era. Within 350 years the

Pueblo IV Era The Pueblo IV Period (AD 1350 to AD 1600) was the fourth period of ancient pueblo life in the American Southwest. At the end of prior Pueblo III Period, Ancestral Puebloans living in the Colorado and Utah regions abandoned their settlements a ...

Pecos village had grown to house more than 2,000 people in its five-storied complex. The people who lived at Cicuye/Pecos Pueblo spoke the

Towa language Jemez (also Towa) is a Tanoan language spoken by the Jemez Pueblo people in New Mexico. It has no common written form, as tribal rules do not allow the language to be transcribed; linguists describing the language use the Americanist phonetic no ...

. The Pecos people enjoyed a rich culture with inventive architecture and beautiful crafts. They also possessed an elaborate religious life, evidenced by the remains of over 20 ceremonial subterranean kivas. Some of the kivas have diameters as large as 40 feet and are 10 feet deep, accessed by wooden ladders. Farming was a main part of their diet and staple crops included the usual beans, corn, and squash. Their location, power and ability to supply goods made the Pecos a major trade center in the eastern part of the Puebloan territory, connecting the Pueblos to the Plains cultures such as the Comanche. There are seven distinct periods of their occupancy beginning with the Preceramic Period (11,500 B.C.E. - 600 C.E.)

Ancestral Puebloan The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, an ...

Paleo-Indians, and ending in the 1830s when the last remaining Pueblo people migrated to

Jemez Pueblo Jemez Pueblo (/ˈhɛmɛz/; tow, Walatowa, nv, Mąʼii Deeshgiizh) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sandoval County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 1,788 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Albuquerque Metropolitan Statist ...

where the people also spoke the Towa language. The historical Pecos people produced, used or traded seven types of ceramic ware during their occupancy of the area. These are known as Rio Grande Greyware (plain and corrugated), Pajarito White Ware,

Rio Grande Glaze Ware Rio Grande Glaze Ware is a late prehistoric and historic pottery tradition of the Puebloan peoples of New Mexico. The tradition involved painting pots with black paint made with lead ore; as the pots were fired the black paint fused and sometimes ...

, Historic polychromes, Historic plain ware, White Mountain Red Ware, and Plains Apache Ware. Many of these were decorated with black, red or polychrome designs.

Spanish mission

The main unit of the park also protects the remains of Mission Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula de los Pecos, a Spanish mission near the pueblo built in the early 17th century. A self-guiding trail begins at the nearby visitor center and winds through the ruins of Pecos Pueblo and the mission church.
Pecos was visited by expeditionaries with

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''. Nicknames In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed "Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as ''Pater Comunitatis'' (father of ...

in 1540. The Spanish mission church was built in 1619. A traditional

kiva A kiva is a space used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circular and underground, ...

was built in front of the church during the

Pueblo Revolt The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé's Rebellion or Popay's Rebellion, was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish empire, Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, larger than prese ...

in 1680 as a rejection of the Christian religion brought by Spanish colonists. However when the Spanish returned in 1692, the Pecos community stayed on friendly terms with them, and a new, smaller church was built in 1717."Spanish Encounters"
Pecos National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service) The site was abandoned in 1838, after the Pecos population suffered from marauding

Comanches The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...

. The surviving remnant of the Pecos population moved to the Jemez Pueblo.

Forked Lightning Ranch

Another part of the park is the Forked Lightning Ranch, a cattle ranch established in the 1920s by

Tex Austin Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...

, a famous producer of

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working va ...

s. It was headquartered at the Kozlowski's Stage Stop and Tavern, a stagecoach stop on the Santa Fe Trail that had also served as a Union forces encampment before the Battle of Glorieta Pass. It was only a cattle ranch for a time before Austin converted it into a

dude ranch A guest ranch, also known as a dude ranch, is a type of ranch oriented towards visitors or tourism. It is considered a form of agritourism. History Guest ranches arose in response to the romanticization of the American West that began to occur ...

which he promoted to Easterners. The main ranch was designed by

John Gaw Meem John Gaw Meem IV (November 17, 1894 – August 4, 1983) was an American architect based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is best known for his instrumental role in the development and popularization of the Pueblo Revival Style and as a proponent of ar ...

in the Pueblo Revival style of architecture. Austin's heavily mortgaged endeavour failed, closing in 1933. In 1936 the ranch again became a working cattle ranch, and in 1941 it was purchased by

Buddy Fogelson Elijah E. "Buddy" Fogelson (February 16, 1900 – December 1, 1987) was an American lawyer, Army Colonel (United States), colonel, businessman, horse and cattle breeder, and philanthropist. Although born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he spent a large p ...

, a Texas oilman who married actress

Greer Garson Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson (29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996) was an English-American actress and singer. She was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who became popular during the Second World War for her portrayal of strong women on the hom ...

. After her husband died, Garson sold her share of the park in 1991 to a conservation group, which donated it to the Park Service.

Old Santa Fe Trail

Portions of the historic

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, th ...

run through all units of the park. This rutted wagon trail was one of the major routes by which the American Southwest grew in the 19th century.

Glorieta Pass Battlefield

The

Battle of Glorieta Pass The Battle of Glorieta Pass (March 26–28, 1862) in the northern New Mexico Territory, was the decisive battle of the New Mexico campaign during the American Civil War. Dubbed the " Gettysburg of the West" by some authors (a term described ...

was fought March 26–28, 1862 in the mountain pass west of Pecos Pueblo, along the route of the Old Santa Fe Trail. Confederate forces were en route to take Union-controlled Fort Union, and were fought to a standoff by militia raised in the New Mexico and Colorado Territories. Although parts of the battlefield have been compromised by highway construction, two sections of the battlefield have been preserved by the Park Service on either side of the pass. Public access to these units is limited by the National Park Service.

Administrative history

Pecos Pueblo and an area of was acquired by the state and preserved as a state monument in 1935. In 1965, President

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

established Pecos National Monument over the same area, and control was turned over the Park Service. In 1990 the main unit of the park was expanded to more than , including a large area of ranchland and archaeologically sensitive landscapes. The two units of the Glorieta Pass Battlefield were formally added to the park in 1993.

References

External links

National Park Service: Pecos National Historical ParkAmerican Southwest, a National Park Service ''Discover Our Shared Heritage'' Travel Itinerary
{{authority control Archaeological sites in New Mexico Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in New Mexico National Historical Parks in New Mexico National Historic Landmarks in New Mexico Ruins in the United States Museums in San Miguel County, New Mexico Protected areas established in 1965 Historic house museums in New Mexico Native American museums in New Mexico National Park Service areas in New Mexico Parks in San Miguel County, New Mexico Parks in Santa Fe County, New Mexico National Register of Historic Places in San Miguel County, New Mexico National Register of Historic Places in Santa Fe County, New Mexico National Historical Parks of the United States