Abó Ruins

The people of Abó spoke Tompiro, close enough to the Piro of the Rio Grande that a friar at Quarai wrote that one who knew the Piro of Socorro and Senecú could make himself understood at Abó, Las Humanas and Tabirá. When the Salinas pueblos failed in the 1670s, under famine, disease, Apache raids and Spanish levies of food and labor, Las Humanas moved here first, in 1670; within a few years Abó too was empty. Survivors went to Isleta and down the Rio Grande toward El Paso, and the Tompiro ceased to exist as a separate people.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Abó Ruins Salinas National Monument 3/4 Mile North Located adjacent to the major east-west trade route through Abó Pass, the Tompiro Pueblo of Abó (ca. 1300s-1670s) was one of the Southwest's largest Pueblo Indian villages. Extensive Indian house complexes are dominated by the unique buttressed walls, 40 feet high, of the Spanish Franciscan mission church of San Gregorio de Abó, built around 1630.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument — 12 mi
  Three Spanish mission churches raised over Tiwa and Tompiro pueblos east of the Manzano Mountains in the 1600s, each of its own stone, and one never finished.

More markers nearby

• Mountainair — 8.7 mi
• Mountainair — 9.6 mi
• Quarai Ruins — 12 mi
• Gran Quivira Ruins — 20 mi