The population of San Jose today is about 140 people. Because it was bypassed by the highway, it was protected it from the usually destructive effects of through traffic An old canal still runs to the north of the town. Of several settlements made on the San Miguel del Vado Land Grant, San Jose is the most populous and has retained the highest degree in the form of its church plaza and the surrounding houses.

San Jose, New Mexico Plaza area, courtesy Google Maps Near the old bridge was the original Santa Fe Trail crossing of the Pecos River. An old Route 66 era steel truss bridge sits abandoned at the end of County Road B41D. 85 and I-25, the highways bypassed the town. Later, when the highway was replaced by U.S. However, it was short-lived and rerouted in 1937. R oute 66 made its way through the village in 1926, probably stimulating the economy. At that time, stockbreeders were forced to search elsewhere for adequate grazing land for their cattle and sheep or abandon this form of livelihood. The village abandonment was further aggravated by the federal government land surveys of the early 20th century, which assigned the common lands of the original land grant to federal jurisdiction and were then fenced in, greatly reducing the public grazing lands. A steady decline in San Jose’s population followed. Once completed, the railroad bypassed San Jose, and traffic along the Santa Fe Trail all but ended. In 1879, the construction of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad began in New Mexico. In 1858, a post office was established in San Jose, which has been in operation, intermittently, from its establishment to the present. This traffic became more important after the settlement of Las Vegas, as caravans began to bypass San Miguel and traveling a shorter route directly to San Jose.

The stagecoach station was probably located in the southeast corner of the plaza.Īs a result of the trade caravans and stagecoaches traveling along the trail, San Jose prospered and grew in population. The stagecoach route, which crossed the Pecos River ford at San Jose, had regular mail service by 1849 and daily passenger service by 1862. The same year, a passenger stagecoach service was established between Independence, Missouri and Santa Fe. In 1846, during the Mexican-American War, San Jose was chosen as a camping site by General Stephen Kearny as he made his way through the area proclaiming the American occupation of New Mexico. San Jose was under the jurisdiction of Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles church at the Pecos Pueblo until nearby San Miguel Del Vado was made a parish and provided with a priest. In May 1826, permission was granted, by the Bishop of Durango, to erect a church at San Jose. The original adobe homes were built closely together around a square, which could be closed for defense in times of Indian raids. In March 1803, nine years after the founding of San Jose, Pedro Rautista Pino, acting on orders of the governor, partitioned the land to the 47 heads of households of San Jose.Īfter the establishment of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, San Jose became one of the many stops along the trail in the Pecos River Valley.Ĭhurch in San Jose, New Mexico courtesy Google Maps The residents were joined by Indians of other pueblos, including the more progressive Pecos Indians, who entered into a genízaro status and thus contributed to the depopulation of the Pecos Pueblo. When the Genizaros became unruly in Santa Fe, Governor Fernando Chacon appointed Don Luis Maria Cabeza de Baca to settle them in the Pecos River Valley. The community was first settled by Spanish military personnel and the Genízaro colony of Santa Fe. Genizaros were Indians that did not belong to any tribe, having been captured and sold by the Spanish, educated as Christians, and, consequently, ostracized from their own tribes. This was one of many colonial towns that the Spanish created to serve as buffer zones against hostile Indian raids. After the community of San Miguel was settled in 1794, the original colonists and others arriving from Santa Fe next established the community of San Jose on the west bank of the Pecos River about 28 miles southwest of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Joseph of the Ford) was originally part of the San Miguel del Vado Land Grant in 1794. Like its neighbor, San Miguel, San Jose Del Vado (St. Native Americans were enslaved by the Spanish.

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