Nina Otero-Warren (1881-1965)

Otero-Warren could organize in Spanish, and that is why Alice Paul's Congressional Union put her in charge of its New Mexico chapter in 1917. She was Santa Fe County's superintendent of schools from 1918 to 1929, and in 1923, as inspector of Indian schools, she drew fire for criticizing the federal boarding system after seeing children kept in deplorable conditions. In the 1930s she and Mamie Meadors homesteaded 1,257 acres outside Santa Fe. In 2021 the U.S. Mint chose her for its American Women quarters.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Nina Otero-Warren (1881-1965) Maria Adelina Isabel Emilia (Nina) Otero- Warren was born into two of New Mexico's prominent Spanish colonial families near Los Lunas. A leader in New Mexico's suffrage movement, in 1922 she was the first woman in state history to run for Congress. A political and social reformer, she worked as Santa Fe Public School's Superintendent and for the WPA. In 1936, she wrote Old Spain in Our Southwest.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroglyph National Monument — 23 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.
• Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument — 29 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

• Valencia — 2.2 mi
• Peralta — 3.7 mi
• Tomé — 4.1 mi
• Vásquez de Coronado's Route — 4.4 mi