Pecos National Historical Park

Pecos National Historical Park operated by the National Park Service, encompasses thousands of acres of landscape infused with historical elements from prehistoric archaeological ruins to 19th-century ranches, to a battlefield of the American Civil War. Its largest single feature is Pecos Pueblo also known as Cicuye Pueblo, a Native American community abandoned in historic times.

Pecos Pueblo
The main unit of the park preserves the ruins of Pecos Pueblo, known historically as Cicuye, the “village of 500 warriors”. The first Pecos pueblo was one of two dozen rock-and-mud villages built in the valley around AD 1100 in the prehistoric Pueblo II Era. Within 350 years the Pueblo IV Era Pecos village had grown to house more than 2,000 people in its five-storied complex.

The people who lived at Cicuye/Pecos Pueblo spoke the Towa language, the Pecos people enjoyed a rich culture with inventive architecture and beautiful crafts. They also possessed an elaborate religious life, evidenced by the remains of over 20 ceremonial subterranean kivas. Some of the kivas have diameters as large as 40 feet and are 10 feet deep, accessed by wooden ladders. Farming was a main part of their diet and staple crops included the usual beans, corn, and squash. Their location, power and ability to supply goods made the Pecos a major trade center in the eastern part of the Puebloan territory, connecting the Pueblos to the Plains cultures such as the Comanche. There are seven distinct periods of their occupancy beginning with the Preceramic Period (11,500 B.C.E. – 600 C.E.) Ancestral Puebloan Paleo-Indians, and ending in the 1830s when the last remaining Pueblo people migrated to Jemez Pueblo where the people also spoke the Towa language.

The historical Pecos people produced, used or traded seven types of ceramic ware during their occupancy of the area. These are known as Rio Grande Greyware (plain and corrugated), Pajarito White Ware, Rio Grande Glaze Ware, Historic polychromes, Historic plain ware, White Mountain Red Ware, and Plains Apache Ware. Many of these were decorated with black, red or polychrome designs.

Spanish mission
The main unit of the park also protects the remains of Mission Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula de los Pecos, a Spanish mission near the pueblo built in the early 17th century. A 1.25-mile self-guiding trail begins at the nearby visitor center and winds through the ruins of Pecos Pueblo and the mission church.

Pecos was visited by expeditionaries with Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in 1540. The Spanish mission church was built in 1619. A traditional kiva was built in front of the church during the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 as a rejection of the Christian religion brought by Spanish colonists. However, when the Spanish returned in 1692, the Pecos community stayed on friendly terms with them. The site was abandoned in 1838, after the Pecos population suffered from marauding Comanches. The surviving remnant of the Pecos population moved to the Jemez Pueblo.

First a state monument in 1935, it was made Pecos National Monument in 1965, and greatly enlarged and renamed in 1990.

Where it is:

Pecos National Historical Park is located 25 miles east of Santa Fe, New Mexico off of Interstate 25. There is no public transportation to the park. Visitors traveling north on I-25 can take exit 299 near Glorieta, NM on to HWY 50 to Pecos Village. From Pecos, head south two miles on State Road 63 and the park will be on your right. Visitors traveling south on I-25 can take exit 307 near Rowe, NM and proceed four miles north to the park on State Road 63. From Rowe, the park will be on your left.

Maps:

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GPS:

35°30’54.348″ N 105°40’45.39″ W

Cost:

Pecos National Historical Park Photo Gallery

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gdisch On January 13, 2021   /   National Park Service, New Mexico   /   Leave a comment