SPOTLIGHT city of Santa Fe New Mexico

SPOTLIGHT

Santa Fe, New Mexico

City profile

Santa Fe (English pronunciation: /ˌsæntəfeɪ/; (Tewa: Ogha Po'oge, Navajo: Yootó) is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of Santa Fe County. Santa Fe (literally 'holy faith' in Spanish) had a population of 75,764 in the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Santa Fe County and is part of the larger Santa Fe-Española Combined Statistical Area. The city's full name when founded was "La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís" ("The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi").

The City of Santa Fe was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates between 1050 to 1150. One of the earliest known settlements in what today is downtown Santa Fe came sometime after 900 C.E. A Native American group built a cluster of homes that centered around the site of today’s Plaza and spread for half a mile to the south and west; the village was called Ogapoge. The Santa Fe River provided water to people living there. The Santa Fe River is a seasonal waterway which was a year-round stream until the 1700s. As of 2007, the river was recognized as the most endangered river in the United States, according to the conservation group American Rivers.

Don Juan de Oñate led the first effort to colonize the region in 1598, establishing Santa Fé de Nuevo México as a province of New Spain. Under Juan de Oñate and his son, the capital of the province was the settlement of San Juan de los Caballeros north of Santa Fe near modern Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. New Mexico's third Spanish governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, however, founded a new city at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in 1608, which he called La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1610, he made it the capital of the province, which it has almost constantly remained, making it the oldest capital city in what is the modern United States. (Jamestown, Virginia, is of similar vintage (1607) but is no longer a capital.) Santa Fe is at least the third oldest surviving American city founded by European colonists, behind the oldest St. Augustine, Florida (1565). (Although Santa Fe is not one of the oldest continuously occupied cities, as from 1680 - 1692 it was abandoned due to Indian raids. A few settlements were founded prior to St. Augustine but all failed, including the original Pensacola colony in West Florida, founded by Tristán de Luna y Arellano in 1559, with the area abandoned in 1561 due to hurricanes, famine and warring tribes. Fort Caroline, founded by the French in 1564 in what is today, Jacksonville, Florida only lasted a year before being obliterated by the Spanish in 1565.)

Santa Fe, New Mexico’s capital, sits in the Sangre de Cristo foothills. It’s renowned for its Pueblo-style architecture and as a creative arts hotbed. Founded as a Spanish colony in 1610, it has at its heart the traditional Plaza. The surrounding historic district’s crooked streets wind past adobe landmarks including the Palace of the Governors, now home to the New Mexico History Museum.

Elevation: 2,194 m

About Santa Fe

With a population of 70,000, Santa Fe, which means Holy Faith in Spanish, is New Mexico’s fourth largest city. Residents are primarily Hispanic, Anglo and Native American people.

Situated at 7,000 feet in the foothills of the southern Rocky Mountains, Santa Fe is the highest and oldest capital in the U.S. Founded between 1607 and 1610, it’s America’s second oldest city.

In 1912, New Mexico officially achieved statehood. Today, its unique offerings of art, culture and ancient traditions make it a world-class destination, drawing more than 1 million visitors each year.

In 2005, Santa Fe became the first U.S. city to be chosen by UNESCO as a Creative City, one of only nine cities in the world to hold this designation. This creativity is at the heart of the community and is a core value for most local businesses.

History

Over its 400 plus year history, Santa Fe has been a commercial center, a place where goods and services were made and traded. Following sporadic trade with settlements such as French New Orleans and Spanish Texas, the town really opened up in 1821, when the first trading caravans completed the 900 mile journey from Missouri. In 1821 New Spain declared independence from Spain, and the new nation officially sanctioned commerce, exchanging the riches of the Mexican silver mines for cattle and wagon loads of textiles, clothing, buckles, buttons, tools, implements and liquor. The six decades of the Santa Fe Trail cemented Santa Fe’s reputation as the commercial capital at Mexico’s northern border, and following New Mexico’s incorporation as a US State in 1911, Santa Fe became the state capital.

Today Santa Fe is the sum of its powerful history, with many families tracing their roots back several generations, a small-town atmosphere and an international reputation for artistic and architectural sophistication.

Santa Fe’s history may be divided into six periods:

Preconquest and Founding
(circa 1050 to 1607)

Santa Fe’s site was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates from between 1050 to 1150. Most archaeologists agree that these sites were abandoned 200 years before the Spanish arrived. There is little evidence of their remains in Santa Fe today.

The “Kingdom of New Mexico” was first claimed for the Spanish Crown by the conquistador Don Francisco Vasques de Coronado in 1540, 67 years before the founding of Santa Fe. Coronado and his men also discovered the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains on their New Mexico expedition.

Don Juan de Onate became the first Governor-General of New Mexico and established his capital in 1598 at San Juan Pueblo, 25 miles north of Santa Fe. When Onate retired, Don Pedro de Peralta was appointed Governor-General in 1609. One year later, he had moved the capital to present day Santa Fe.

Settlement Revolt & Reconquest
(1607 to 1692)

For a period of 70 years beginning in the early 17th century, Spanish soldiers and officials, as well as Franciscan missionaries, sought to subjugate and convert the Pueblo Indians of the region. The indigenous population at the time was close to 100,000 people, who spoke nine basic languages and lived in an estimated 70 multi-storied adobe towns (pueblos), many of which exist today. In 1680, Pueblo Indians revolted against the estimated 2,500 Spanish colonists in New Mexico, killing 400 of them and driving the rest back into Mexico. The conquering Pueblos sacked Santa Fe and burned most of the buildings, except the Palace of the Governors. Pueblo Indians occupied Santa Fe until 1692, when Don Diego de Vargas reconquered the region and entered the capital city after a bloodless siege.

Established Spanish Empire
(1692 to 1821)

Santa Fe grew and prospered as a city. Spanish authorities and missionaries – under pressure from constant raids by nomadic Indians and often bloody wars with the Comanches, Apaches and Navajos-formed an alliance with Pueblo Indians and maintained a successful religious and civil policy of peaceful coexistence. The Spanish policy of closed empire also heavily influenced the lives of most Santa Feans during these years as trade was restricted to Americans, British and French.

The Mexican Period
(1821 to 1846)

When Mexico gained its independence from Spain, Santa Fe became the capital of the province of New Mexico. The Spanish policy of closed empire ended, and American trappers and traders moved into the region. William Becknell opened the l,000-mile-long Santa Fe Trail, leaving from Franklin, Missouri, with 21 men and a pack train of goods. In those days, aggressive Yankeetraders used Santa Fe’s Plaza as a stock corral. Americans found Santa Fe and New Mexico not as exotic as they’d thought. One traveler called the region the “Siberia of the Mexican Republic.”

For a brief period in 1837, northern New Mexico farmers rebelled against Mexican rule, killed the provincial governor in what has been called the Chimayó Rebellion (named after a village north of Santa Fe) and occupied the capital. The insurrectionists were soon defeated, however, and three years later, Santa Fe was peaceful enough to see the first planting of cottonwood trees around the Plaza.

Territorial Period
(1846 to 1912)

On August 18, 1846, in the early period of the Mexican American War, an American army general, Stephen Watts Kearny, took Santa Fe and raised the American flag over the Plaza. Two years later, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding New Mexico and California to the United States.

In 1851, Jean B. Lamy arrived in Santa Fe. Eighteen years later, he began construction of the Saint Francis Cathedral. Archbishop Lamy is the model for the leading character in Willa Cather’s book, “Death Comes for the Archbishop.”

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. With the arrival of the telegraph in 1868 and the coming of the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1880, Santa Fe and New Mexico underwent an economic revolution. Corruption in government, however, accompanied the growth, and President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Lew Wallace as a territorial governor to “clean up New Mexico.” Wallace did such a good job that Billy the Kid threatened to come up to Santa Fe and kill him. Thankfully, Billy failed and Wallace went on to finish his novel, “Ben Hur,” while territorial Governor.

Statehood
(1912 to present)

When New Mexico gained statehood in 1912, many people were drawn to Santa Fe’s dry climate as a cure for tuberculosis. The Museum of New Mexico had opened in 1909, and by 1917, its Museum of Fine Arts was built. The state museum’s emphasis on local history and native culture did much to reinforce Santa Fe’s image as an “exotic” city.

Throughout Santa Fe’s long and varied history of conquest and frontier violence, the town has also been the region’s seat of culture and civilization. Inhabitants have left a legacy of architecture and city planning that today makes Santa Fe the most significant historic city in the American West.

In 1926, the Old Santa Fe Association was established, in the words of its bylaws, “to preserve and maintain the ancient landmarks, historical structures and traditions of Old Santa Fe, to guide its growth and development in such a way as to sacrifice as little as possible of that unique charm born of age, tradition and environment, which are the priceless assets and heritage of Old Santa Fe.”

Today, Santa Fe is recognized as one of the most intriguing urban environments in the nation, due largely to the city’s preservation of historic buildings and a modern zoning code, passed in 1958, that mandates the city’s distinctive Spanish-Pueblo style of architecture, based on the adobe (mud and straw) and wood construction of the past. Also preserved are the traditions of the city’s rich cultural heritage which helps make Santa Fe one of the country’s most diverse and fascinating places to visit.

Climate

Many residents say the climate is so good they could never live anywhere else. With an average of 300 sunny days each year, Santa Fe has four distinct seasons, each enjoyable in its own way.

High in the desert mountains of the southwest Santa Fe boasts low humidity and pleasant warm summer days with refreshingly cool summer nights. Winters are beautiful with snow storms punctuated by sunny days. The colors of fall are bright with blooming chamisa and asters, yellow aspens and sweet, crisp air. In spring, the fruit trees bloom, and daffodils, tulips and forsythia sprout all over town.

With low humidity, it’s always comfortable to walk around town or to hike the trails close by. Average high temperatures go from 44 degrees in January to 86 degrees in July. Lows vary from 15 in January to 54 in June.

Quality of Life

Many residents say the climate is so good they could never live anywhere else. With an average of 300 sunny days each year, Santa Fe has four distinct seasons, each enjoyable in its own way.

High in the desert mountains of the southwest Santa Fe boasts low humidity and pleasant warm summer days with refreshingly cool summer nights. Winters are beautiful with snow storms punctuated by sunny days. The colors of fall are bright with blooming chamisa and asters, yellow aspens and sweet, crisp air. In spring, the fruit trees bloom, and daffodils, tulips and forsythia sprout all over town.

With low humidity, it’s always comfortable to walk around town or to hike the trails close by. Average high temperatures go from 44 degrees in January to 86 degrees in July. Lows vary from 15 in January to 54 in June.