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Barrio de Analco Historic District

Santa Fe, New Mexico


The Chapel of San Miguel (San Miguel Mission) located in the Barrio de Analco Historic District

The Chapel of San Miguel (San Miguel Mission)
located in the Barrio de Analco Historic District
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The National Historic Landmark Barrio de Analco Historic District in Santa Fe, New Mexico is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods of European origin in the United States. Originally settled in 1620 by the Spanish, Barrio (or District) de Analco suffered major destruction during the 1680 Great Pueblo Revolt. The Spanish rebuilt Analco beginning in 1692 during their recolonization of New Mexico. The buildings of Analco are in the Spanish Pueblo and Territorial styles that reflect the merger of Spanish, Indian, and eventually American building techniques. In the seven adobe brick buildings that make up the Barrio de Analco Historic District visitors can see how working-class Spanish colonists, Tlascalan Indians, and other American Indians lived in Santa Fe during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

The Spanish first settled Santa Fe during the winter of 1609-1610 as they sought to “civilize” the North American continent and to expand their New World empire. Mirroring other Spanish colonial settlements of the era, the colony in Santa Fe was a defensible fort and village set around a central plaza. Also featured in this itinerary, the Santa Fe Plaza became the commercial, social, and political center of the community. Fearing attacks from the local Pueblo Indians, many high-ranking Spanish officials and citizens built their homes around the plaza because it was a central defendable area.

As Santa Fe prospered, the original settlement expanded to include growing neighborhoods on the opposite side of the Santa Fe River from the plaza. By 1620, the newly constructed Chapel of San Miguel was in place and a suburb, the Barrio de Analco, began to grow. The Tlascalan Indian word, “Analco,” means “the other side of the river,” which distinguished this barrio from the neighborhood on the plaza side of the Santa Fe River where government officials and other prominent citizens resided and attended mass. The Chapel of San Miguel provided laborers, artisans, and Tlascalan Indian servants with a place to worship in the growing suburb.

The Santa Fe Plaza was the commercial, social, and political center of historic Santa Fe.

The Santa Fe Plaza was the commercial, social, and political center of historic Santa Fe.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Analco and Santa Fe suddenly stopped growing when the Great Pueblo Revolt of 1680 erupted. After years of enduring Spain’s encomienda system of forced labor and the insistence of Catholic conversion, the Puebloan Indians revolted against Spanish rule. During the revolt, Analco was the first Santa Fe neighborhood the Puebloan Indians destroyed, including partially burning down the Chapel of San Miguel. The Spanish colonists and most of their Tlascalan Indian servants fled from Santa Fe to El Paso. The Puebloan Indians held Santa Fe for 12 years. In 1692, led by Diego de Vargas, the Spanish returned to re-occupy Santa Fe, and Vargas made peace with the Puebloan Indians. After regaining control, the Spanish began rebuilding Santa Fe and the Barrio de Analco.

As Analco residents rebuilt the neighborhood throughout the 1700s and 1800s, it became the chosen suburb for Santa Fe’s married enlisted men, servants, merchants, non-Puebloan Indians who served the Spanish (known as Genizaros), and skilled artisans (including, shoemakers, tailors, musicians, silversmiths, blacksmiths, masons, adobe makers, bricklayers, and carpenters). Analco’s one-story Spanish Pueblo homes were constructed using adobe bricks. Before the Spanish introduced forming the adobe into bricks, the Indians used a “puddle” or hand-formed technique to shape the adobe and had flat roofs with tamped earth and vigas (poles). The tamped or packed earth acted as insulation and assisted in keeping the homes cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

By the late 1840s, when Santa Fe became part of the United States, American settlers began to remodel the Spanish Pueblo style buildings. The Spanish Pueblo architectural style evolved into the Territorial style. American settlers introduced stucco adobe and capping the walls with fired brick to help prevent erosion. For better insulation, the Americans added milled wooden doors and window frames, and inserted glass in the windows. Best viewed by taking a walking tour, the seven adobe brick buildings that make up the Barrio de Analco Historic District provide visitors with a glimpse of old Santa Fe and of the Spanish Pueblo and Territorial architectural styles reflected in the buildings in the neighborhood.

Walking Tour
:

The Roque Tudesqui House at 129-135 East De Vargas Street is a good place to begin a walking tour of the historic district. Dating from the early 19th century, the Roque Tudesqui House is an example of the Spanish Pueblo and Territorial styles. Tudesqui, an Italian trader in Santa Fe who purchased the building in 1841, owned many properties and businesses. The long one-story house has three-foot adobe thick walls, brick coping, and deeply inset windows. One of the walls was made using the “puddle” adobe technique, which indicates the Indian influence in the construction of the house. See the Historic Santa Fe Foundation website or call 505-983-2567 for more information.

The Oldest House located at 215 East De Vargas Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The Oldest House located at 215 East De Vargas Street,
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Courtesy of Richie Diesterheft, Flickr’s Creative Commons

Across the street from the Roque Tudesqui House at 132 East De Vargas Street is the Gregoria Crespin House. In 1693, a Tlascala Indian received a grant for the land on which the Gregoria Crespin House sits. Tree-ring samples obtained from the vigas in the house indicate a cutting date for the tree of between 1720 and 1750, while the first existing title transfer on the house was filed in 1747. Originally of Spanish Pueblo design, this one-story house with its thick adobe walls, five rooms, a covered veranda, and a patio, later had Territorial embellishments added to its trim along the roofline.

Leaving the Gregoria Crespin House, visitors should continue walking east along East De Vargas Street until it intersects with the Old Santa Fe Trail. Across the intersection and to the left at 215 East De Vargas Street is The Oldest House. The Oldest House is an excellent example of Spanish Pueblo architecture. Tree-ring samples obtained from this house indicate a cutting date between 1740 and 1767. The western portion of the house has thick adobe walls, dirt floors, low ceilings, a corner fireplace, and no Territorial embellishments. The eastern portion of the house contains a craft shop and museum. Hours may vary at the Oldest House Museum; please call 505-988-1944 for more information.

Across the street from The Oldest House at 401 Old Santa Fe Trail is the Chapel of San Miguel (Mission of San Miguel). Originally constructed in 1620 and partially destroyed during the Great Pueblo Revolt in 1680, the Chapel of San Miguel is one of the oldest churches in the United States. Demolishing the first church, the Spanish rebuilt an adobe chapel on the same site in 1710 in the Romanesque fortress church style. For the next 50 years, it served as the chapel for the presidio of Santa Fe’s Spanish soldiers and later as a parish church. In 1881, the Christian Brothers of the Catholic Church purchased the Chapel, which they continue to operate and maintain. While the church has had numerous repairs over the years, it still has its original adobe walls. The altar screen inside the Chapel dates from 1798 and is the oldest wooden altar screen in New Mexico. The carved gilded and painted wood statue of St. Michael the Archangel inside the Chapel dates from around 1709. Mass is still held weekly. Please call 505-983-3974 for more information.

St. Michael’s Dormitory (Lamy Building) in the Territorial Style

St. Michael’s Dormitory (Lamy Building) in the Territorial Style
Courtesy of Richie Diesterheft,
Flickr’s Creative Commons

Just south of the Chapel of San Miguel on Old Santa Fe Trail is St. Michael’s Dormitory (today known as the Lamy Building). Constructed in 1878 by the Christian Brothers to use as the main building of St. Michael’s College for Boys, this adobe Territorial style building was originally three stories high and had a tower, porticos, galleries, and a mansard roof. A destructive fire reduced the building to two stories in 1926, diminishing what had been described as one of the stateliest buildings in Santa Fe. Now part of the New Mexico State office building complex, the building has one of only a few two-story rear porticos remaining in Santa Fe. Please call 505-827-7313 for more information.

From St. Michael’s Dormitory, walkers can stroll back to East de Vargas Street heading east to the final two stops of the walking tour, the Boyle House at 327 East De Vargas Street and the Adolph Bandelier House at 352 East De Vargas Street (also listed as 1005 Paseo De Peralta). While the exact date of construction of the Boyle House is unknown, it was in place as early as 1766-68. This one story adobe house has walls four feet thick, a flat roof, and supposedly had at one time 37 rooms. Territorial embellishments, including squared off ceiling beams, a long rear portico, mantel fireplaces, and a bay window are later additions to the house.

Just down the street from the Boyle House is the Adolph Bandelier House. This large adobe house is an excellent example of a Territorial residence and was the home of the famous archeologist, Adolph Bandelier, from 1882 until 1892. Bandelier studied the ancestral Puebloan Indian homelands in what would become the nearby Bandelier National Monument. Today, Sherwoods, a gallery specializing in American Indian artifacts, operates out of the Adolph Bandelier House. Please call 505-988-1776 for more information.

While the Barrio de Analco is not as large and bustling as it once was, the neighborhood evokes old Santa Fe and the Spanish, Mexican, Indian, and American cultures that shaped the area.

Plan your visit

Barrio de Analco Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, is located on East De Vargas St. and the Old Santa Fe Trail in Santa Fe, NM. Click here for the National Historic Landmark file: text and photos. Please use the websites and phone numbers listed below for more information on visiting the buildings that are open to the public: Oldest House Museum: Phone: 505-988-1944; Chapel of San Miguel: Website: Chapel of San Miguel (Mission of San Miguel), Phone: 505-983-3974; St. Michael’s Dormitory (the Lamy Building): Website: New Mexico General Services Department, Phone: 505-827-7313; Adolph Bandelier House: Website: Sherwoods, Phone: 505-988-1776.

The Chapel of San Miguel has been documented by the National Park Service’s Historic American Buildings Survey. Barrio de Analco Historic District is also featured in the National Park Service American Southwest Travel Itinerary.

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