Pecos National Historic Site

Hi Blog! Today is Friday, September 25, 2015. It is our first full day near Las Vegas, New Mexico. Just down the road from us is Pecos Valley, a major crossroads of different cultures.

Situated between the towering Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the flat-topped Glorieta Mesa lies the Glorieta Pass, through which a continuously unfolding story of human culture has traveled to and from the Pecos Valley for thousands of years. This gateway between the plains and the southern Rocky Mountains has seen the Pueblo and Plains Indians, Spanish conquerors and missionaries, Mexican and Anglo armies, Confederate and Union troops, Santa Fe Trail settlers and adventurers, tourists on the railroads, Route 66 and now Interstate 25. To learn more about the area, we stopped at the Pecos National Historical Park.

Oscar-winning actress Greer Garson and her husband Col. E.E. Fogelson owned a large range in Pecos Valley. There was evidence that a once great pueblo city existing in the valley. They donated 300 acres in 1965 for the creation of Pecos National Monument, money in 1983 for construction of the Visitor Center, and land for the designation of Pecos National Historical Park. They loved the area and wanted to make sure this historic site was preserved.

We started our tour of the Visitor Center with a short film on the life of the Pueblo Indians that lived in the valley from about 800 to 1838. Archeologist Alfred Vincent Kidder began to excavate the site in 1915. By digging through a large trash mound, Kidder was able to determine that the site was continually occupied for almost 1,000 years. By piecing together bits of broken pottery buried in the layers, he could approximate the date of construction. By comparing the pottery to other known basketmaker and pueblo pottery, he could determine how far and wide the Pecos Pueblo traded with other Plains and Pueblo Indians. It is hard to imagine that these pots were made in the 1100's.

The only standing structure left in the Pecos Pueblo was the second church built by Spanish Missionaries in the 1700's. However, once archaeologists began studying the area of the Pecos Pueblo, they were able to determine the layout of the walled city. Here, artists have created a model of what they believe the structures to look like based on other pueblo communities.

With trail guide in hand, we began our journey from the Visitor Center to the Pecos Pueblo. Just below the hill on which the Pueblo stood was a large open field. Archaeologists believe this field was used as guest quarters and a market square for visiting bands of Plains and Pueblo Indians. Once atop the mesa, we could see the outline of the excavated rooms. From Spanish reports in 1584, it is believed that over 2,000 people lived in the walled city.

In addition to the multi-story dwellings, the Pecos Pueblo has a number of ceremonial kivas. The kivas were circular rooms dug into the ground with ventilator shafts, a deflector, firepit and sipapu or small hole in the floor symbolizing the place of humans' emergence and point of access to the spirits dwelling below. Here, Dave is about to go below and commune with the spirit world.

Inside the kiva, the original fireplace stands ready. Behind the stairs is the ventilation shaft. We were very careful not to step in the hole in the floor that is the entrance to the netherworld!

Much of the north side of the pueblo is still buried where it fell into disuse. This large mound was once part of a five story structure housing hundreds of people. Now it is just home to a couple of ground squirrels.

The church built by the Spanish missionaries in the 1700's looms large on the mesa. As we got closer, we learned this was the second church built on the site. The rock walls you see in the foreground are the outline of the much larger first church built earlier in the 1600's.

A corner of the first church still holds some of its original stucco. The church was destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The Indians in various pueblos united to drive the Spaniards back to Mexico. They killed the priest and destroyed the church.

Freedom for the Pecos Pueblo only lasted 12 years before the Spanish came back. Unlike other pueblos in the area, the Pecos Pueblo welcomed back the Spanish and joined in the Spanish fight to retake Santa Fe. A smaller church was built and Spanish rule was re-established. But by 1780, disease, Comanche raids and migration had reduced the population of Pecos to fewer than 300. Pecos was almost a ghost town when the Santa Fe Trail trade began flowing past it in 1821. Here Dave is standing on top of the wagon ruts in the Sata Fe Trail.

The last survivors left a decaying pueblo and empty mission church in 1838. They joined their Towa-speaking relatives 80 miles west at Jemez Pueblo, where their descendants still live today. Much of their once great city has returned to its natural state.  Today, blossoming chollo bushes make us think of the once-fertile lands that surrounded this sacred place.