El Rancho de las Golondrinas

The ranch's name translates to "The Ranch of the Swallows," but travelers on the Camino Real knew it as something more practical: a paraje, an official rest stop on the Royal Road running from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Governor Don Juan Bautista de Anza noted the stop in 1780. Today the 500-acre property in the farming valley of La Ciénega operates as a living history museum, opened in 1972, where guides in period clothing demonstrate weaving, blacksmithing, milling, and farming. The ranch and its acequia irrigation system are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.