Today we had a guided tour of Santa Fe. We were picked up at
the RV Park by our bus driver and our guide, Tomas. Our first stop was the Round Building, also known as the New
Mexico State Capitol and Legislature. This is where we picked up another tour
guides. Our group of 16 people, were reduced into two groups of 8. The smaller
group makes it easier to hear all our tour guides had to share with us. This is
another perk that Yankee RV Tours provides.
The unique history of New Mexico is reflected in its
capitols. New Mexico claims the oldest as well as one of the newest capitols in
the US. The Palace of the Governors, built in 1609 on the north side of the
Plaza, is the oldest capitol. It was the seat of Spanish, Mexican and American
governments. Today, it is the New Mexico State History Museum. The current
State Capitol was designed by WC Kruger, constructed by Robert E. McKee and
dedicated in December 1966. It is built in New Mexico Territorial style, which
is an adaptation of Greek revival and Pueblo adobe architecture.
The building forms the Zia sun symbol. New Mexico's
distinctive Zia sun symbol is closely associated with the Land of Enchantment.
Inspired by a design found on a 19th Century water jar from Zia Pueblo, it
represents a circular sun with linear rays in four directions. To the Zia
people, four is a significant number. It is embodied in the four directions of
the earth, four seasons of the year, four times of the day (sunrise, noon,
evening and sunset), and life's four divisions (childhood, youth, adulthood and
old age). Everything is bound together in a circle of life, without a
beginning, without an end.
The Capitol was renovated in the early 1990s and rededicated
in December of 1992. The Capitol Art Foundation and Art Collection were also
created at this time. All the art and handcrafted furniture in the capitol's
permanent collection were created by New Mexico artists.
The foundation was created to assist in the acquisition of
art for permanent, public exhibition in the State Capitol. The collection
features contemporary masterworks by artists who live and work in New Mexico.
The Capitol Art Collection is housed throughout the public
areas of the State Capitol, the Walter K. Martinez Walkway and the Capitol
North, as well as outdoors on the capitol grounds and the Clay Buchanan
Gardens.
The collection consists of a wide range of media, styles and
traditions, including handcrafted furniture groupings. The mission of the
Capitol Art Foundation is to collect, preserve, exhibit, interpret and promote
appreciation of works of art that reflect the rich and diverse history,
cultures and art forms of the people of New Mexico.
Since the art displayed in the Capitol is a foundation, New
Mexico is one of the few capitol buildings that has religious art displayed.
We toured the second (ground) and third levels. The second level is the level visitors enter on. The Rotunda in the center of the building measures almost 50 feet in diameter and is inlaid with a turquoise and brass mosaic of the great seal. The great seal of New Mexico has changed little since the Territorial seal of 1851. The American bald eagle shielding the smaller Mexican eagle within its wings symbolizes New Mexico’s change of sovereignty in 1846. The bald eagle, which represents bravery, skill and strength, clasps three arrows in its talons. The smaller Mexican brown (or harpy) eagle grasps a snake in its beak and cactus in its talons. This portion of the seal is still the official symbol of Mexico. The scroll below the American and Mexican eagles contains the motto Crescit Eundo, translated from Latin “It Grows As It Goes”. The date 1912 was added to the seal when New Mexico was admitted as the 47th state. The word “territory” was replaced by “State” in that year.
The marble is Travertine, native to New Mexico. Looking up,
the flags of New Mexico's thirty three counties are on permanent display from
the fourth-floor balcony. The skylight is sixty-feet from the floor and
represents an Indian basket weave; the blue represents the sky and the pale
pink is the earth.
The New Mexico Legislature consists of the House of
Representatives and the Senate. There are 70 members of the House of
Representatives and 42 members of the Senate. Representatives must be at least
21 years old, and senators must be at least 25 years old. All legislators must
be citizens of the US and live in the district from which they are elected.
Members of the house are elected every two years and senators are elected every
four years.
We even visited the Governor’s Office and her gallery. The
Governor’s Gallery was founded in 1975 as a venue for presenting the arts to a
broad public and serves as an outreach facility of the Museum of Fine Arts.
The
focus of the gallery is on the art and artists. The Governor’s Gallery is a
separate entity from the Capitol Art Collection.
The collections we saw today
were part of the Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts.
Also, in the front lobby of the Governor’s office … one side
is pictures and the stories of New Mexico children waiting to be adopted and
the other side is pictures and stories of children that have been adopted.
We walked toward the oldest church. Along the way, we
stopped where they still made adobe bricks. Adobe Brick Making at San Miguel
Chapel happens every spring. Cornerstones and Historic Santa Fe Foundation host
four Saturdays of traditional adobe brick making in Santa Fe during Heritage
Preservation Month. A full size adobe brick is four inches thick, ten inches
wide, and fourteen inches long. A brick this size weighs about thirty pounds. Adobe
means mudbrick in Spanish. Cornerstones will use each full-size brick to
restore buildings in Northern New Mexico.
The San Miguel Chapel is the oldest church in the US. The
earliest documentation of the existence of San Miguel Chapel is from 1628. Oral
history says that San Miguel Chapel was built around 1610, and it has been
rebuilt and restored several times over the past 400 years. The original
church, the “Hermita de San Miguel,” was built on the site of an ancient kiva
of the Analco Indians. It is believed that it was constructed by Tlaxcalan Indians,
who came to New Mexico from old Mexico in 1598 with a Spanish contingent led by
Don Juan Oñate. In its early years, the church served a small group of
Tlaxcalan Indians, laborers, and Spanish soldiers who lived in this area on the
south side of the Santa Fe River.
The church was partially destroyed in 1640 at the hands of
Luis de Rojas, a provincial governor who feuded with church authorities. It was
reconstructed but was severely damaged again during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Twelve years after the Pueblo Revolt drove them out, the Spanish returned to
Santa Fe, led by the Governor General Don Diego de Vargas, who ordered the
repair and restoration of San Miguel Chapel. By the end of 1710, the work was
completed and a new roof was in place. In 1798, the mayor of Santa Fe helped
fund major repairs and the construction of the beautiful altar screen in the
front of the church. An elaborate three-tiered bell tower was erected around
1848, followed by the installation of the 780-pound San Jose Bell in the bell
tower around 1856.
In 1859 Archbishop Jean Baptist Lamy purchased the Chapel
and adjacent land for the De LaSalle Christian Brothers, who developed a school
on the adjacent site. Repairs were initiated again in 1862 by the Christian
Brothers. A wooden floor was added, as well as the Communion rail and a large
door at the entrance. In 1872 a strong storm struck Santa Fe and brought down
the bell tower and, along with it, the San Jose Bell, which is now on display
inside the Chapel. By 1887 the Chapel was in serious need of repair, but with
no funds available, the Christian Brothers came to a painful decision to
demolish the structure. When the local community learned of its plight, many
people came to the rescue. At this time, the first of two stone buttresses were
built on the front of the building to shore up the adobe walls, and the
interior and exterior walls were plastered. A tar and gravel roof replaced the
old mud roof, and a new, smaller bell tower was added. Two years later, two
additional buttresses were added on the north wall.
In 1955, a major restoration was carried out under the
direction of Ms. E. Boyd, a Santa Fe painter and Spanish Colonial art expert.
The original dirt floor and sanctuary steps were uncovered and can be seen
today just beyond the Communion rail. During this investigation, many human
remains and pieces of pottery were found buried under the church floor which
made for a fascinating educational experience.
After the church, we stopped at the Santa Fe Plaza. The plaza
is the heart of downtown Santa Fe and has been for nearly 400 years. The Plaza
remains the central part of the city, hosting Indian and Spanish markets and events
as well as community gatherings, concerts and more. It was filled today with people
enjoying the vendors and mild weather.
How do you get firewood in an adobe town with no trees? In the 19th century, Santa Fe trucked it in on the backs of burros. The burros would park and unload in Burro Alley where their human partners sold the wood and then spent the money in saloons and brothels, also in Burro Alley. The town celebrates Burro Alley's colorful past, part of it, anyway, with a life-size wood-laden burro in bronze, sculpted by Charles Southard in 1988.
Our lunch destination was, Cowgirls. Since 1993, the Cowgirl
has been serving up barbecue, regional American cuisine, and a whole lot more
at its Railyard location near downtown Santa Fe. You know me, I love history …
here is a little bit about this small place, but there is nothing small about
it! Late in 1987 a small group of New York City restaurateurs
were looking for the next new dining concept, when a couple of gals, came up
with the idea of promoting the culture of the American Cowgirl through the
foods of the American West and Southwest. Soon enough, they’d roped in a
talented chef from south Texas and started gathering family recipes as well as
their favorite regional road-trip recipes.
Within weeks they’d partnered up with the late Margaret
Formby, the founder of the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame & Western Heritage
Museum in Hereford, Texas. The resulting Cowgirl Hall of Fame Restaurant opened
in New York’s West Village on Valentine’s Day 1988. Success quickly followed as
New Yorkers rediscovered the savory flavors of authentic barbecue and comfort
food. Not content just to ride the chilly canyons of Manhattan,
one of the New York partners, Barry Secular, got the urge to move some of the BBQ
to the True West and the seeds that would become the Santa Fe Cowgirl were
planted. Come June of 1993, the second Cowgirl Hall of Fame Restaurant opened
in a hundred-year-old building in the historic Guadalupe district of Santa Fe.
Fast forward a couple of decades later and the Cowgirl BBQ
occupies almost the entire block where it started, now having added a Billiard
Parlor, a commercial catering kitchen and several private party rooms. The
patio is one of the most inviting summertime venues for locals and tourists
alike and the Cowgirl has become a local institution. We enjoyed our catered
lunch in one of the private party rooms. Our lunch was authentic New Mexican
cuisine. It was delicious and very enjoyable.
After the bus picked us up, we came back to the RV park, we
were going to relax outside, but Mother Nature had other plans and we all
relaxed inside our rigs to the pitter patter of rain. Tomorrow is another day
and we are headed to Los Alamos.
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