Cañones is a
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
in
Rio Arriba County,
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
, United States. Its population was 118 as of the
2010 census.
Cañones had a
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
until it closed on January 3, 2002.
Demographics
The town had 85 people in the
2020 census.
Description
The origins of the community trace back to 1766, when Juan Pablo Martín Serrano was awarded the Polvadera Grant. Serrano was a wealthy military veteran with a large family, and established a seasonal rancho in the canyon, raising livestock, farming the canyon bottom, and trading with the
Utes. Permanent settlement seems to have begun with Juan Bautista Valdez, who bought a grant at the present location of Cañones in 1807.
Cañones was visited by
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
s Paul Kutsche and John R. Van Ness in the 1960s, who considered the community typical of what they called the Rio Arriba subculture of Hispanic New Mexico. They concluded that this subculture was characterized by communal land grants, small economies, ''campanilismo'' (community spirit), and a fair degree of social equality.
During the time Kutsche and Van Ness were guests in the community, the state closed the one-room school and ordered the children to attend school in
Coyote
The coyote (''Canis latrans''), also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, or brush wolf, is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the Wolf, gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the c ...
, which meant busing the students several miles over a very bad road. The parents refused ''en masse'' to send their children to school in Coyote, and the subsequent legal battle seems to have revolved around the issue of whether the parents were acting on legitimate concerns for their children's safety or were using the children to pressure the state into building a better road into the community. The parents were fined for
truancy
Truancy is any intentional, unjustified, unauthorized, or illegal absence from compulsory education. It is a deliberate absence by a student's own free will and usually does not refer to legitimate excused absences, such as ones related to medic ...
, but the community now has an acceptable paved road.
The ruins of Tsiping or Tsi’pinouinge, is found on Pueblo Mesa just south of Cañones. The settlement was active during the
Classic stage, between 1200 CE and 1325 CE, and at its peak the settlement had 335 to 400 ground floor rooms and sixteen kivas surrounding a central plaza. Visitors to the ruins can find the trailhead at the south end of County Rd. 196.
See also
*
List of census-designated places in New Mexico
References
External links
Census-designated places in New Mexico
Census-designated places in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico
{{NewMexico-geo-stub