The Royal Road ran from Mexico City north through desert that killed the unprepared, carrying silver and soldiers and missionaries toward a capital that didn't yet exist. Juan de Oñate opened the route in 1598; Governor Pedro de Peralta founded Santa Fe itself in 1610, and from that year forward every government that claimed New Mexico — Spanish, Mexican, American — ran it from the same adobe building on the same plaza. The church built across the river to serve the native population dates to that same founding era; it burned in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and was rebuilt. The road kept running for centuries. At La Ciénega, south of the city, an official rest stop on that road still stands — 500 acres, listed on the National Register, its acequia irrigation system intact. Three national historic trails terminate at the Plaza. The accumulation is the point: Santa Fe was always where the roads ended.
