Laguna del Perro

The salt that named the Salinas went south to the silver mines. Spanish observers from Oñate on described these lakes of white salt, which form as saline water evaporates from the playas. Through the 1600s Spanish officials had salt gathered here, by Pueblo labor the Spanish state never paid for, and shipped down the Rio Grande to the silver refineries of northern Mexico, Parral among them. The Tompiro had mined and traded it long before, on routes reaching Taos and Mexico City. This panel stands riddled with bullet holes, its title partly shot away.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Laguna Del Perro Elevation 6,110 FT Numerous salt ponds and lakes, of which Laguna del Perro is the largest, occur in the lowest part of the Estancia basin, a closed depression between the Manzano Mountains to the west and the lower Pedernal hills to the east. The Basin was filled by a 100 foot-deep lake in the late Pleistocene time and native peoples have always mined salt here. The community was founded in 1879.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument — 21 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

• Estancia — 13 mi
• Estancia — 14 mi
• Mountainair — 19 mi
• Mountainair — 20 mi