The Coronado Historic Site contains more than 2,000 years of history, pre-contact Puebloan murals, and impressive views of the Rio Grande and surrounding mountains.
Coronado Historic Site
Bernalillo
Many of us New Mexicans have passed the Coronado Historic Site hundreds of times. I know I have, typically hustling down I-25 to Albuquerque or heading up U.S. 550 towards Four Corners. I figured it was just another site of the Spanish Conquest, as it’s named for conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado.
After a decade or two, I finally visited and learned I was misled. Yes, Spanish conquest is part of the story, but Coronado only camped there temporarily, a fact that obscures the site’s 2,000-year Indigenous history. The first residents there built pit houses (AD 600), followed by others who helped construct the village of Kuaua (AD 1300). These Tiwa-speaking people developed it into a pueblo of more than 1,000 rooms and ten kivas, only to abandon it around the time of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. In the 1930s, the pueblo was excavated and restored, becoming New Mexico’s first state monument.
This striking site sits above the Rio Grande overlooking a stand of big cottonwoods with a view of the Sandias, the Jemez, and the Sangre de Cristos. Geese—like those depicted in some of the fourteen exquisite murals on display in the John Gaw Meem–designed visitor center gallery—still float in the lazy Rio. The murals, painted in successive layers, were recovered from the walls of a square kiva, an amazing example of pre-contact Puebloan art.
Since my first visit, I have longed to stay a few days at the Coronado Campground located just south of the site. It offers the shade of cottonwoods, impressive views, bird watching, and a place to reflect on the people of the adjacent pueblo. If contemplation grows stale, nearby attractions abound, like the Santa Anna Star Casino and Bosque Brewery.
485 Kuaua Rd, Bernalillo | nmhistoricsites.org/coronado
