El Rancho de las Golondrinas: Ranch of the Swallows
New Mexico
A few miles south of Santa Fe, in the La Cienega Valley, sits one of the oldest ranches in the American Southwest. El Rancho de las Golondrinas, the Ranch of the Swallows, dates to the early seventeen hundreds. It stood along El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the Royal Road that stretched sixteen hundred miles from Mexico City to Santa Fe, and served as a paraje, an official rest stop, where caravans traveling north and south could water their animals and spend the night.
The springs of La Cienega Creek made this a rare oasis in the high desert. People had lived near this water long before the ranch. Today the two-hundred-acre property operates as a living history museum with many historic buildings, including adobe structures on original colonial foundations.
It opened to the public in nineteen seventy-two.
