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Monday, September 16, 2013

What happened to Coronado-era pueblos?

Coronado found 12 pueblos along the Rio Grande from Bernalillo to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm often asked, where did they all go?
     Only the existing Sandia Pueblo and the ruins of Kuaua and Piedras Marcadas pueblos are left. Kuaua can be visited at the Coronado Historic Site, and Albuquerque's Open Space program sometimes gives tours of the Piedras Marcadas site.
     A condominium was to be erected on top of Piedras Marcadas. The City of Albuquerque saved that site by buying the land in 1988. Alameda Elementary School sits atop old Alameda Pueblo.  
     The saddest fate was for one of the state's most historic sites of all — Santiago Pueblo. That was where Coronado spent the winters of 1540-41 and 1540-42. The landowner bulldozed that site in the 1950s. The other original pueblo sites have been built over with modern houses or commercial development over the past few decades.

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