Bernalillo: Where Coronado Wintered and Vargas Returned

Bernalillo sits on the Rio Grande north of Albuquerque, and humans have farmed this valley for many centuries. The Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado camped near here in fifteen forty, calling the region Tiguex Province. In sixteen ninety-five, Diego de Vargas formally established the Spanish settlement of Bernalillo during the recolonization of New Mexico following the Pueblo Revolt.

Through the eighteen hundreds Bernalillo grew as a trade center linking the pueblos and Mexican settlements along the river. In nineteen oh three, nine years before New Mexico statehood, Sandoval County was carved out of the northern portion of Bernalillo County, and Bernalillo became the county seat. The town maintains its character as a compact river community, its historic plaza and church a counterpoint to the sprawling development that has spread across much of the Rio Grande Valley around it.