Doña Elena Gallegos / Elena Gallegos Land Grant

The panel's open space was bought, not given. Part of the grant passed to Albuquerque Academy between 1957 and 1964, and after the Academy turned down a federal land swap for it, more than fifteen thousand people petitioned for a quarter-cent tax; the city bought the foothills in July 1982. The same crest had another claim. Citing a 1748 Spanish grant, Sandia Pueblo, T'uf Shur Tia in Tiwa, argued from 1976 that a federal survey had wrongly set its boundary at the foothills. A 2003 act kept the land in the forest, with permanent rights for the pueblo.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Doña Elena Gallegos c. 1680-c.1731 Doña Elena Gallegos was a daughter of early seventeenth-century Hispanic colonists, Antonio Gallegos and Catalina Baca. They fled New Mexico with their newborn daughter during the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, and she returned in 1693 with two brothers and an uncle. Elena wed Santiago Gurulé, a tattooed Frenchman, born Jacques Grolet, a member of the ill-fated La Salle expedition. Everyone with the Hispanic form of his surname, Gurulé, has roots in New Mexico. After her husband's death in 1711, Captain Diego Montoya conveyed to Elena the vast landholding that has since borne her name. Official Scenic Historic Marker Elena Gallegos Land Grant From the crest of the Sandia Mountains to the Rio Grande Valley lies the Elena Gallegos Land Grant. It covered 70,000 acres, approximately the northern half of Albuquerque up to Sandia Pueblo. The extent of the grant-some felt its eastern border was the foothills-was uncertain until a nineteenth-century court interpreted the word "sierra" in the original document as the crest of the mountains. The adjudication helped make it possible to preserve part of the land grant as open space and provide a picnic area for the enjoyment of all.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroglyph National Monument — 16 mi
  Some 24,000 images pecked into the dark basalt of Albuquerque's West Mesa, protected in 1990 and then crossed by a city boulevard.

More markers nearby

• Doña Dolores "Lola" Chávez de Armijo — 3.6 mi
• Tijeras Canyon — 7.4 mi
• Alameda — 8.5 mi
• Corrales — 9.3 mi