Cañones, New Mexico Explained

Official Name:Cañones, New Mexico
Settlement Type:Census-designated place
Pushpin Map:New Mexico
Subdivision Type:Country
Subdivision Name:United States
Subdivision Type1:State
Subdivision Name1:New Mexico
Subdivision Type2:County
Subdivision Name2:Rio Arriba
Unit Pref:Imperial
Area Footnotes:[1]
Area Total Km2:10.72
Area Land Km2:10.72
Area Water Km2:0.00
Area Total Sq Mi:4.14
Area Land Sq Mi:4.14
Area Water Sq Mi:0.00
Population As Of:2020
Population Total:85
Population Density Km2:7.93
Population Density Sq Mi:20.54
Timezone:Mountain (MST)
Utc Offset:-7
Timezone Dst:MDT
Utc Offset Dst:-6
Elevation Ft:7356
Coordinates:36.1769°N -106.4244°W
Postal Code Type:ZIP code
Postal Code:87516[2]
Area Code:575
Blank Name:GNIS feature ID
Blank Info:2584065

Cañones is a census-designated place in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States. Its population was 118 as of the 2010 census.[3] Cañones had a post office until it closed on January 3, 2002.[4]

Demographics

The town had 85 people in the 2020 census.

Description

The origins of the community trace back to 1766, when Juan Pablo Martín Serrano was awarded the Polvadera Grant. Serrano was a wealthy military veteran with a large family, and established a seasonal rancho in the canyon, raising livestock, farming the canyon bottom, and trading with the Utes. Permanent settlement seems to have begun with Juan Bautista Valdez, who bought a grant at the present location of Cañones in 1807.[5]

Cañones was visited by anthropologists Paul Kutsche and John R. Van Ness in the 1960s, who considered the community typical of what they called the Rio Arriba subculture of Hispanic New Mexico. They concluded that this subculture was characterized by communal land grants, small economies, campanilismo (community spirit), and a fair degree of social equality.[5]

During the time Kutsche and Van Ness were guests in the community, the state closed the one-room school and ordered the children to attend school in Coyote, which meant busing the students several miles over a very bad road. The parents refused en masse to send their children to school in Coyote, and the subsequent legal battle seems to have revolved around the issue of whether the parents were acting on legitimate concerns for their children's safety or were using the children to pressure the state into building a better road into the community. The parents were fined for truancy, but the community now has an acceptable paved road.[5]

The ruins of Tsiping or Tsi’pinouinge, is found on Pueblo Mesa just south of Cañones. The settlement was active during the Classic stage, between 1200 CE and 1325 CE, and at its peak the settlement had 335 to 400 ground floor rooms and sixteen kivas surrounding a central plaza. Visitors to the ruins can find the trailhead at the south end of County Rd. 196.[6]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: ArcGIS REST Services Directory. United States Census Bureau. October 12, 2022.
  2. Web site: USPS - Look Up a ZIP Code. 2012-02-15. United States Postal Service. 2012.
  3. Web site: U.S. Census website . . 2011-05-14 .
  4. Web site: Postmaster Finder - Post Offices by ZIP Code. United States Postal Service. August 29, 2013. April 28, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190428153255/https://webpmt.usps.gov/pmt008.cfm. dead.
  5. Book: Kutsche . Paul . Cañones : Values, Crisis, and Survival in a Northern New Mexico Village . Salem . 0881333360.
  6. Web site: Kelley . Shari A. . Tsiping . New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources . 7 October 2020.