Taos Pueblo, New Mexico

Some dates area indelibly etched into our memories. There are the happy ones, like weddings and births, but of course, there are the sad ones, both personal and those of sweeping importance, that hit us our of the blue. I remember my father talking about what he was doing he heard about Pearl Harbor being attacked; I remember what I was doing when a teacher came into our high school study hall to tell us President Kennedy had been shot.

North Taos Pueblo, September 12, 2001

My husband and I were vacationing in New Mexico when the 9/11 attacks changed the world. Unable to leave until the emergency was over, we revisited the Pueblo north of the modern town of Taos. This site lies below a number of airplane flight paths, so normally a modern photograph would have con trails in the sky; however, as almost all civilian aircraft were grounded (special permission was required to fly), this is a rare modern view of the North Pueblo under the sky as it had existed for centuries.

North Taos Pueblo, 1920s

The photogravure, above, was published by Plimpton Press, circa 1925, from the Curtis plate (public domain).

According to oral tradition, the adobe structures at Taos Pueblo were built between 1000 & 1450, and today are much the same as they were when the Spanish first came, seeking the legendary golden cities of Cibola. They are considered the oldest continually inhabited structures in the United States and have been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The Pueblo is closed due to the pandemic.