The History of Santa Fe

Santa Fe under Spain and Mexico

The City of Santa Fe was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates between 1050 to 1150.

Santa Fe was the capital of Nuevo Mexico, a province of New Spain explored by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and established in 1515. The "Kingdom of New Mexico" was first claimed for the Spanish Crown in 1540, almost 70 years before the founding of Santa Fe. Coronado and his men also traveled to the Grand Canyon and through the Great Plains on their New Mexico expedition.

Spanish colonists first settled in northern New Mexico in 1598. Don Juan de Oñate became the first Governor and Captain-General of New Mexico and established his capital in 1598 at San Juan Pueblo, 25 miles north of Santa Fe. The city of Santa Fe was founded by Don Pedro de Peralta, New Mexico's third governor. Peralta gave the city its full name, "La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Assisi", or "The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi".

San Miguel Chapel in Santa Fe is the church structure in the U.S. The original adobe walls and altar were built by Tlaxcala Indians from Mexico under the direction of Franciscan Padres, circa 1610. It was partially destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The thick adobe walls remained unharmed. In 1710 it was rebuilt. Stone buttresses later were added to strengthen the walls. The tower was remodeled and a modern facade was added.

The Chapel of San Miguel in Santa Fe is an outstanding example of Spanish style churches built after the Pueblo Revolt, using high windows and thick walls for protection.

A settlement on the site that would become Santa Fe was first established by Juan Martinez de Montoya ca. 1607-1608 The town was formally founded and made a capital in 1610, making it the oldest capital city and perhaps tied with Jamestown, Virginia (1607) for second oldest surviving American city founded by European colonists, behind St. Augustine, Florida (1565).

Except for the years 1680-1692, when, as a result of the Pueblo Revolt, the native Pueblo people drove the Spaniards out of the area known as New Mexico, later to be again conquered by Don Diego de Vargas, Santa Fe remained Spain's provincial seat until the outbreak of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810. In 1824 the city's status as the capital of the Mexican territory of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico was formalized in the 1824 Constitution.

Santa Fe and the United States

In 1841, a small military and trading expedition set out from Austin, Texas, with the aim of gaining control over the Santa Fe Trail. Known as the Santa Fe Expedition the force was poorly prepared and was easily repelled by the Mexican army. In 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico, and General Kearny led a troop of US Cavalry into the city to claim it and the whole New Mexico Territory for the United States. By 1848 it officially gained New Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Colonel Alexander William Doniphan under the command of Kearny recovered ammunition from Santa Fe labeled "Spain 1776" showing both the quality of communication and military support New Mexico received under Mexican rule, or that it was a peaceful city until Anglo Americans arrived.

In 1851, Jean Baptiste Lamy arrived in Santa Fe and began construction of Saint Francis Cathedral. For a few days in March 1863, the Confederate flag of General Henry Sibley flew over Santa Fe, until he was defeated by Union troops.

Santa Fe was originally envisioned as an important stop on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. But as the tracks progressed into New Mexico, the civil engineers decided that it was more practical to go through Lamy, a town in Santa Fe County to the south of Santa Fe. The result was a gradual economic decline. This was reversed in part through the creation of a number of resources for the arts and archaeology, notably the School of American Research, created in 1907 under the leadership of the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett. The first airplane to fly over Santa Fe was piloted by Rose Dugan, carrying Vera von Blumenthal as passenger. Together they started the development of the Pueblo Indian pottery industry, a major contribution to the founding of the annual Santa Fe Indian Market.

In 1912, New Mexico became the country's 47th state, with Santa Fe as its capital.

Santa Fe - "The City Different"

The Spanish laid out the city according to the "Laws of the Indies", town planning rules and ordinances which had been established in 1573 by King Phillip II. The fundamental principle was that the town be laid out around a central plaza. On its north side was the Palace of the Governors, while on the East was the church that later became the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi.

An important style implemented in planning the city was the radiating grid of streets centering from the central Plaza. Many were narrow and included small alley-ways, but each gradually merged into the more casual byways of the agricultural perimeter areas. As the city grew throughout the 19th century, the building styles evolved, too, so that by Statehood in 1912, the eclectic nature of the buildings caused it to look like "Anywhere USA". The city government realized that the economic decline, which had started more than twenty years before with the railway moving west and the Federal government closing down Fort Marcy, might be reversed by the promotion of tourism.

To achieve that goal, the city created the idea of imposing a unified building style ? the Spanish Pueblo Revival look, which was based on work done restoring the Palace of the Governors. The sources for this style came from the many defining features of local architecture: vigas and canales from many old adobe homes, churches built many years before and found in the Pueblos, and the earth-toned, adobe-colored look of the exteriors.

After 1912 this style became official: all buildings were to be built using these elements. By 1930 there was a broadening to include the ?Territorial?, a style of the pre-statehood period which included the addition of portals and white-painted window and door pediments. The City had become 'Different'. However, in the rush to pueblo-fy Santa Fe, the city lost a great deal of its architectural history and eclecticism. Among the architects most closely associated with this new style is John Gaw Meem.

By an ordinance passed in 1958, new and rebuilt buildings, especially those in designated historic districts, must exhibit a Spanish Territorial or Pueblo style of architecture, with flat roofs and other features suggestive of the area's traditional adobe construction. However, many contemporary houses in the city are built from lumber, concrete blocks, and other common building materials, but with stucco surfaces (sometimes referred to as "faux-dobe", pronounced as one word: "foe-dough-bee") reflecting the historic style.

In 2005/2006, a consultant group from Portland, Oregon prepared a "Santa Fe Downtown Vision Plan" to examine the long-range needs for the downtown area, roughly bounded by the Paseo de Peralta on the north, south and east sides and by Guadalupe Street on the west. In consultation with members of community groups, who were encouraged to provide feedback, the consultants made a wide range of recommendations in the plan now published for public and City review.