2003 Most Endangered

Most Endangered Places in New Mexico 2003

• The Waters of New Mexico, Statewide
  
• St. Vrain Mill, Mora County
  
• The Gutierrez-Hubbell House, Bernalillo
  
• Chaco Culture National Historical Park, San Juan County
  
• La Bajada Mesa and Escarpment, Santa Fe
  
• New Mexico's Historic Earthen Architectural Tradition, Statewide
  
• Melvin W. Mills House, Colfax
  
• Tucumcari Metropolitan Park — 5 Mile Park, Quay
  
• New Mexico's Greater Otero Mesa Area, Otero
  
• Historic Roadside Markers of New Mexic, Statewide
  

La Bajada Mesa and Escarpment, Santa Fe

Significance: La Bajada represents a key landscape demarcation between what the Spanish colonial world termed the Rio Abajo and Rio Arriba regions of New Mexico--the lower and upper lands with their distinct ecologies and climates. It also represented the greatest single obstacle for movement across the land as signified by the many pathways that early travelers used to climb or descend the escarpment. These various paths stretch for miles along the escarpment eastward beyond the Cerrillos Hills to the Galisteo Basin and westward to the Canon Santa Fe. The wagon and, later, automobile roads passing near the village of La Bajada recall historic (and prehistoric) north and south movement. Early engravings and, later, postcards celebrated the escarpment and the challenges it posed to transportation. Many of these early images convey a sense of the grandeur of undisturbed open spaces, altered only by the engineering feats of modest roadways scaling the escarpment.

Threat: Mining and development could disturb the view shed of the entire escarpment. Any disturbances of the land (including cell towers) will diminish the capacity to appreciate the significance of the space. Retaining an undisturbed as possible view shed is essential to retaining a feeling for this important landscape and what it has meant historically for defining New Mexico's southwestern character.