By North American standards, Santa Fé is very, very old. The Spanish arrived in Nuevo Mexico in 1607 and  the Governor, Don Pedro de Peralta,  made Santa Fé the capital  in 1609. After Mexican independence in 1821 the Santa Fé Trail from Missouri made the city  a major   centre of trade between the US and Mexico. In 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican American War resulted in Nuevo Mexico becoming part of the USA. Despite being part of the US since 1848 and state capital since 1912, Santa Fé has a totally different look and feel from all other US cities. We love Santa Fé and have visited it several times.

'The Rainbow Man', East Palace Avenue

Apart from state government and tourism, Santa Fé’s other great industry is Art. The scenery and culture of New Mexico have been attracting artists since the late 19th century. There are more than 250 art galleries in and around the city, most of which are in ordinary shops, but a few occupy interesting old buildings. Established in 1945, The Rainbow Man is  in a building  old enough to have been damaged in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. The owner has traded directly with the Indians for many years and the gallery specialises in Indian Art and vintage photographs of American Indians. 

Palace of the Governors

The Palace of the Governors was built in 1610 by Don Pedro de Peralta and is now the oldest public building in the USA. It was one of the few buildings to survive unscathed the 1680 Pueblo Revolt when the Peublo Indians rose up against the Spanish Colonists and drove them out. Spain re-asserted control of the area in 1692-3. The Palace was the seat of Spanish, Indian, Mexican and American governors until statehood in 1912, and is now a museum. During the day, Indian vendors line the front of the Palace selling jewellery and other Indian goods, but this picture was taken in the evening after they had finished for the day.

Santa Fé

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‘Miraculous Staircase’, Loretto Chapel, Santa Fé

Santa Fé is a great cultural and historic centre and the Loretto Chapel is one of its best known sights. In the chapel is a spiral staircase with no central column known as the ‘Miraculous Staircase’. The story behind the staircase is that the Chapel was built with no means of access to the Choir Loft (even in those days builders didn’t finish the job properly!).  The nuns prayed to St. Joseph for a solution to their problem and on the 9th day a carpenter appeared looking for work. He built a spiral staircase with no central support, then disappeared without taking payment. Mythology suggests that maybe the carpenter was St. Joseph himself. Click Tab 2 to see the exterior of the Chapel.

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Hewett House & Museum of Art, Lincoln Ave

Great efforts have been made to ensure that the old and new buildings in Santa Fé blend together. The only major exception that we found was the City Hall which is a dreadful mock adobe eyesore. In this picture we see two successful adobe style buildings. The New Mexico Museum of Art was founded in 1917 and is housed in a Pueblo Revival building designed by I. H. and William M. Rapp. The building on the right is the Hewett House which takes its name from Edgar Lee Hewett who was founding director of the Museum of New Mexico and responsible for the restoration of the Palace of the Governors. The house was built in the early 1870s as the Officers Quarters for Fort Macy, but in 1916 Frank Springer modified it to the Spanish-Pueblo style and it became Hewett’s residence. 

The Oldest House in the USA, 215 E de Vargas Street

Let us be clear, this is not the oldest building in the USA. There are old colonial buildings on the east coast that date back to before 1646 when this house is thought to have been built. Even the claim to be the oldest house in the USA is rather dubious as there are houses in New Mexican Pueblos such as Acoma that are thought to be considerably older. However, the dodgy claim to be the oldest house in the USA should not detract from the fact that this is a genuinely old and interesting building.

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Cathedral of St Francis of Assisi

The cathedral is set slightly away from the plaza at the end of San Francisco Street. It is on the site of the 1610 Our Lady of the Assumption Church and part of the adobe walls of the San Miguel Chapel are from that church. The cathedral was built between 1869 and 1886 by French Architects in the style of European cathedrals. Looking at it we immediately thought ‘Hold on, isn’t there something missing?’. We discovered that the original design did include spires, but they were never added. The cathedral is home to the oldest statue of the Madonna in the USA.  Click Tab 2 to see the interior of the Cathedral.

Plaza & Old Federal Building

Santa Fé’s Spanish-Pueblo style architecture has been well preserved, and many of the modern additions have been built to match the old adobe buildings. As in most Spanish and Latin American cities, the plaza is the hub of Santa Fé. It was originally a much larger piece of common land, used for grazing livestock. As the city grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, part of the old plaza was built upon and the remainder turned into a formal plaza.  The Palace of the Governors occupies the north side of the plaza.

© Mike  Elsden 1981 - 2025

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