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Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument
Just 95 miles southeast of Albuquerque, you’ll find the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, where Spanish missions stand alongside Native American pueblo homes.
These three special sites – Abó, Quarai, and Gran Quivira – tell the story of how Spanish missionaries and Pueblo people lived together from 1622 to 1677. More than 30,000 visitors come each year to explore these ancient stone walls and learn about this fascinating piece of American history.
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Smart Building Techniques
The Spanish missionaries were master builders who created churches using advanced methods for their time. They carefully lined up their buildings with the east-west direction to match the sun’s path during the equinox, using old Roman measuring tools to make everything precise.
The walls they built were 6 feet thick, made with a special mix of limestone, volcanic ash, and native plant fibers that has lasted for 400 years. Their clever design at Quarai church meant priests’ voices could travel 127 feet to the back without any modern sound equipment, thanks to perfect acoustic engineering.
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A Thriving Native American City
Before the Spanish arrived in 1598, Gran Quivira (called Las Humanas Pueblo back then) was the largest settlement between Pecos and the Rio Grande, home to exactly 3,128 Pueblo people. The town spread across 23 acres – about 17 football fields – with 2,176 rooms in buildings up to four stories high…