29 May Exploring the Camino Real in Doña Ana

A quick drive outside of Las Cruces will take you back in time to a place that many take for granted.

The Village of Doña Ana is one of the oldest communities in southern New Mexico. Mexico grated El Ancón de Doña Ana in 1839 and the community was settled in 1843. It was the first county seat and it marked the border between the United States and Mexico after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. After that, some families left Doña Ana to settle a new community called La Mesilla. As Doña Ana grew in size, local leader, Don Pablo Melendres, first justice of the peace in Doña Ana County, asked Lieutenant Sackett of the First US Dragoons to lay out a town several miles south of Doña Ana. In 1849, six miles from Doña Ana, Las Cruces was established. In 1852, the first church in the Mesilla Valley was constructed in Doña Ana. Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria was built in stages through about 50 years. In the 1870s La Mesilla became the county seat and Doña Ana, the first established community in the Mesilla Valley, began to fall from prominence.

Learn more about Doña Ana here.

We #FoundGuia there the other day and we all agreed that more should be done to help preserve this incredible community. We’ll have an announcement on that soon.