Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument

Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument is a collection of three discontiguous units: Quarai, Abó, and Gran Quivira. Each unit contains distinctive 17th century Spanish missions, American Indian pueblos, and a variety of other historic buildings and ruins. The units are in central New Mexico in a region known to the colonial Spanish as the Salinas Province, named for the valuable salt deposits found there. Through the centuries, this diverse region supported prehistoric hunter-gatherers and puebloan groups, Spanish missionaries, and European American settlers. The people, places, and stories of the Salinas Pueblo Missions reflect a long tradition of cultural diversity, social interaction, and adaptation to a rich, but demanding environment.

Monument headquarters and the main visitor center are in Mountainair, New Mexico. Visitor contact stations, picnic areas, and interpretive trails and waysides are also a part of each of the three units.

Abó, the oldest pueblo at Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, represents a unique continuum of land use over some 1,000 years by settlers of the Tompiro people. The site includes pit houses, jacales, prehistoric and historic pueblos, 17th century Spanish Franciscan mission structures, and 19th century ranchero structures. San Gregorio de Abó is the oldest mission in the monument, representing a remarkable example of well-planned and well-designed Southwestern mission architecture and landscape architecture.

Quarai is the southernmost pueblo of the Tiwa people. The site includes a prehistoric settlement, a large 17th century Tiwa pueblo, a large 17th century Spanish Franciscan mission that served as the seat of ecclesiastical administration in the Salinas province, a small 19th century church and ranchero compound, and other associated sites and artifacts. La Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Cuarac mission structures at Quarai represent the greatest volume of mission ruins architecture at a single unit of the monument.

Gran Quivira, originally known as Las Humanas, is the largest Jumano pueblo of the Salinas province. The site includes pit houses, prehistoric and historic pueblos, 17th century Spanish Franciscan mission structures, 19th and 20th century homesteads, and other associated sites and artifacts. San Isidro de las Humanas and San Buenaventura de las Humanas represent the only place in the monument where there are two distinct complexes of colonial-era missions.