History
Polvadera was founded as a farming community in the 1620s after Juan de Oñate had established the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, when Spanish settlers came north and settled among the Piro Pueblo Indians. [9] The name of the original Piro pueblo there is unknown and its ruins, which may have been destroyed by the meandering of the Rio Grande, have not been excavated. In 1629 Apaches destroyed the pueblo of Polvareda. [10] It was subsequently rebuilt, but was abandoned as a result of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and because of further Apache raiding after the reconquest was not resettled again until the early 19th century after Governor Fernando Chacón reopened the area for settlement.
Apache and Navajo raids continued until after the American Civil War when the US Army began a strenuous interdiction policy. [11] The town was attacked as late as 1846 by over a hundred Navajo who made away with a large number of livestock. [12]
Camp Connelly, sometimes called Fort Connelly, [9] was established by Colonel Canby in 1862 adjacent to Polvadera, on land leased from the then governor Henry Connelly. [13] Lt. William Brady was sent there as a recruiting officer to process volunteers. [14] Camp Connelly was only maintained until the end of the civil war in 1865. [13]
The Santa Fe Railroad came through in 1882 and the Post Office in Polvadero was established in 1895. [15] The current church of San Lorenzo was built in 1898. [16]
Polvadera has always been subject to the flooding of the Rio Grande. Major floods occurred in 1898, which destroyed the church, in 1929, and 1937. [4] [17] Formerly, the major diversion of Rio Grande water for irrigation in Socorro County occurred at Polvadera; however, after the floods of 1929 a new diversion was built upstream at San Acacia. [18]
In 1958 when Interstate 25 was being built down the Rio Grande valley, Polvadera was not given an exit, the nearest exit provided was at Lemitar a few miles to the south. [19]
The Puebloans or Pueblo peoples, are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Currently 100 pueblos are actively inhabited, among which Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi are the best-known. Pueblo people speak languages from four different language families, and each Pueblo is further divided culturally by kinship systems and agricultural practices, although all cultivate varieties of maize.
Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, known locally simply as "Los Ranchos" or "The Village," is a village in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 6,024 at the 2010 Census.
Kewa Pueblo is a federally-recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in northern New Mexico, in Sandoval County southwest of Santa Fe. The pueblo is recorded as the Santo Domingo Pueblo census-designated place by the U.S. Census Bureau, with a population of 2,456 at the 2010 census.
Socorro is a city in Socorro County in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is in the Rio Grande Valley at an elevation of 4,579 feet (1,396 m). In 2010 the population was 9,051. It is the county seat of Socorro County. Socorro is located 74 miles (119 km) south of Albuquerque and 146 miles (235 km) north of Las Cruces.
Tiwa is a group of two, possibly three, related Tanoan languages spoken by the Tiwa Pueblo, and possibly Piro Pueblo, in the U.S. state of New Mexico.
San Antonio is a census-designated place in Socorro County, New Mexico, United States, roughly in the center of the state, on the Rio Grande. The entire population of the county is approximately 18,000.
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 colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, larger than present-day New Mexico. The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spaniards and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province. The Spaniards reconquered New Mexico twelve years later.
Luis Lopez is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Socorro County, New Mexico, United States. It lies between Socorro and San Antonio along the Rio Grande.
San Miguel de Socorro is the Catholic church in Socorro, New Mexico, built on the ruins of the old Nuestra Señora de Socorro mission. The old mission was built around 1626, but was destroyed in 1680 during the Pueblo Revolt. A portion of the adobe wall of the old church remains today and still can be seen behind glass just left of the altar. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
Teypana was the first pueblo to be called Socorro. This Piro pueblo was located close to present-day Socorro, New Mexico. A reference from 1598 suggests Teypana was on the west bank of the Rio Grande, downriver from the pueblo of Pilabó. Found in a partly flawed list of Piro pueblos, the reference is somewhat problematic. In 1598, Juan de Oñate and an advance party of his colonists were given food and water by the people of Teypana. In response, they named the settlement “Socorro”, which means “help” or “aid” in Spanish. By 1626, the name had become associated with the Piro pueblo of Pilabó, site of the first permanent mission in Piro territory, now buried under the town of Socorro, NM.
The Piro pueblo of Senecú was the southernmost occupied pueblo in New Mexico prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. It was located on the west bank of the Rio Grande within sight of the Piro pueblo of San Pasqual. Colonial Spanish documents consistently place the pueblo opposite of Black Mesa, which is near San Marcial. Due to changes in the floodplain and the establishment of San Marcial, however, no surface remains of the pueblo survive in the area.
Interstate 25 (I-25) in the US state of New Mexico follows the north–south corridor through Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It replaced U.S. Route 85 (US 85), which is no longer signed, but still exists in route logs sharing the I-25 alignment. I-25 starts in New Mexico at an interchange with I-10 in Las Cruces and extends roughly 460 miles (740 km) before reaching Colorado. I-25 passes through principally rural land through central New Mexico and passes through or near the cities of Las Cruces, Truth or Consequences, Socorro, Belen, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Vegas, and Raton.
New Mexico has a long history of wine production, within American wine, especially along the Rio Grande, from its capital Santa Fe, the city of Albuquerque with its surrounding metropolitan area, and in valleys like the Mesilla and the Mimbres River valleys. In 1629, Franciscan friar García de Zúñiga and a Capuchín monk named Antonio de Arteaga planted the first wine grapes in Santa Fe de Nuevo México, in what would become the modern Middle Rio Grande Valley AVA. Today, wineries exist in the aforementioned Middle Rio Grande Valley, as well as the Mesilla Valley AVA and the Mimbres Valley AVA.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the U.S. state of New Mexico.
The Rio Grande Trail is a proposed long distance trail along the Rio Grande in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The river extends over 1,800 total miles, some 700 miles (1,100 km) of which pass through the heart of New Mexico. It is the state's primary drainage feature and most valuable natural and cultural resource. The river and its bosque provide a wide variety of recreation, including hunting and fishing, birdwatching, river rafting, hiking, biking, and horseback riding. The river also flows through or beside numerous spectacular and geologically interesting landforms, the result of extensive volcanism and erosion of the valley within the Rio Grande Rift. Although some trail advocates would like to see the trail extended the full distance through New Mexico, from the Colorado border to the United States–Mexico border, the portion proposed for initial development extends 300 miles (480 km), from Bernalillo south to Las Cruces.
The Middle Rio Grande Project manages water in the Albuquerque Basin of New Mexico, United States. It includes major upgrades and extensions to the irrigation facilities built by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and modifications to the channel of the Rio Grande to control sedimentation and flooding. The bulk of the work was done by the United States Bureau of Reclamation and the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s, but construction continued into the 1970s and maintenance is ongoing. The project is complementary to the San Juan-Chama Project, which transfers water from the San Juan River in the Colorado River Basin to the Rio Grande. Although distribution of water from the two projects is handled through separate allotments and contracts, there is some sharing of facilities including the river itself. The ecological impact on the river and the riparian zone was the subject of extended litigation after a group of environmentalists filed Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation in 1999.
Tortugas, New Mexico or Tortugas Pueblo is a community in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
San Pascual Pueblo was a Piro pueblo south and east of Socorro, in Socorro County, New Mexico, United States. Its ruins lie on the east bank of the Rio Grande, on a butte, on the western slope of the Little San Pascual Mountain, overlooking the river, near the eastern boundary of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.
San Ygnacio de la Alamosa, also known as Alamosa, is now a ghost town, in Sierra County, New Mexico, United States. San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was founded in 1859 as a native New Mexican colonizing settlement from San Antonio. The site of the new colony was along the west bank of the Rio Grande, 35 miles south of Fort Craig, on the south bank of Alamosa Creek nearby its mouth and confluence with the Rio Grande, in what was then southern Socorro County.
The Rio Grande Valley is the river valley carved out by the Rio Grande as it flows through the American Southwest and northeastern Mexico, forming a part of the border region. In the US state of New Mexico, the river flows mostly north to south, and forms a valley near Cochiti Pueblo to the state line near El Paso, Texas along the floors of the large sedimentary basins of the Rio Grande Rift, and includes the narrow sections between the basins. It has been historically settled first by the Pueblo peoples, the Spanish, the Mexicans, and finally Anglo-Americans. As the largest river in the state, some of its most populous cities are located wholly or partially in the valley, including Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city.
