Business New Mexico History Museum
505-476-5100
113 Lincoln Avenue
Santa Fe,
New Mexico
87501
About Us
New Mexico's first comprehensive museum dedicated to centuries of people's stories - from Native Americans, Spanish explorers, Santa Fe Trail riders, the railroad, artists, soldiers, scientists, hippies and, yes, even a few aliens. The New Mexico History Museum opens the doors on long-stored artifacts, photographs, paintings and textiles and displays them in a brand-new, light-filled building on the Santa Fe Plaza. In its 96,000 square feet, visitors can place their hands on impressions in a wall that will trigger the stories of early Native Americans, touch a rope similar to the one that sparked the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, hear the arguments for and against statehood, stand in a mockup of the secret room where scientists bound for the Manhattan Project got their orders.
As our views of the people and events that shaped us evolves and deepens, so does the way we tell their stories. The New Mexico History Museum takes a new and engaging approach toward making history accessible for everyone. Rather than telling visitors what happened, the Museum presents a theatrical environment and the engaging stories of the many cultures that have called the Land of Enchantment home. Sometimes those cultures blended. Sometimes they clashed. Always, they added new stitches to a tapestry of life that's among the oldest in the nation.
Whether those stitches were for good or ill is up to visitors to decide. The Museum allows them to reach their own conclusions about what really happened.
Among its tales are those of Juan de Onate, Diego de Vargas, Geronimo, Kit Carson, Billy the Kid, the Harvey Girls, the Taos Artists, Navajo Code Talkers, Bataan Death March survivors, the building of the bomb and the creation of legendary communes, like the Hog Farm.
The Museum - the nation's newest - also contains the nation's oldest public building, The Palace of the Governors. Built in 1609, it draws visitors for a glimpse at its native architecture as well as its rotating and permanent exhibits, including the Segesser Hide Paintings, which depict an early encounter between tribesmen and the Spanish.
All combined, the Museum is the perfect place to start your New Mexico journey.
Located on the Santa Fe Plaza, the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors is just steps away from fine dining, classic hotels and a relaxing courtyard perfect for people-watching.