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 M?ico, a province of New
Spain explored by Francisco V?quez 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 O?te 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 As?i", 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 reconquered 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
F?de Nuevo M?ico 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
pueblofy? 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.
