Riverside is a former village, now a suburb of Espanola, in

Rio Arriba County Rio Arriba County () is a List of counties in New Mexico, county in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 40,363. Its county seat is Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, Tierra Amarilla. Its ...

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 ...

, in the southwestern United States. It is located in north-central New Mexico, on the left bank (east side) of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

across the river from Española proper. It is on NM Route 68 just north of

U.S. Route 285 U.S. Route 285 is a north–south United States highway, running 846 miles (1,362 km) through the states of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. The highway's southern terminus is in Sanderson, Texas at an intersection with U.S. Route 90. ...

and just south of the former village of Santa Niño. To the southeast is the former village of San Pedro.

History

As early as 800 A.D. the area was being intensively farmed by the

pueblo people The Pueblo peoples are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Among the currently inhabited Pueblos, Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi are some of the ...

. In 1598 when Capitán General

Juan de Oñate Juan de Oñate y Salazar (; 1550–1626) was a Spanish conquistador, explorer and viceroy of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in the viceroyalty of New Spain, in the present-day U.S. state of New Mexico. He led early Spanish expedition ...

arrived in northern New Mexico, the area was occupied by the

Tewa The Tewa are a linguistic group of Pueblo people, Pueblo Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans who speak the Tewa language and share the Pueblo culture. Their homelands are on or near the Rio Grande in New Mexico north of San ...

Ohkay Owingeh Ohkay Owingeh (, ), known by its Spanish name as San Juan Pueblo from 1598 to 2005, is a pueblo in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined that community as a census-designated p ...

(San Juan Pueblo). The Riverside lands remained as irrigated farm lands while over the next 300 years ownership became intermingled between puebloans and others until The Pueblo Lands Act of 1924, when a decision of the Lands Board set, or identified, the present southern border of San Juan Pueblo just north of Santa Niño. In 1941, the Oñate Bridge was built across the Rio Grande connecting Española and Riverside, which afterwards was annexed by Española.

References

Villages in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub