Old Acoma "Sky City"

The legend the panel opens with has a second mesa in it. About two and a half miles northeast stands Katzimo, the Enchanted Mesa, which Acoma tradition names as an earlier home, abandoned when a storm brought down the only way up. In 1897 a Princeton professor climbed it to prove the story false and declared that no Indian legend could survive the test of science. Frederick Webb Hodge went up the same year and found pottery and other signs of people living there. Acoma now keeps Katzimo closed as sacred ground.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historical Marker Old Acoma "Sky City" Legend describes Acoma as a "place that always was". Archeological evi- dence shows it has been occupied since at least the 13th century. Es- tablished on this mesa for defensive purposes, Acoma was settled by in- habitants of nearby pueblos which had been abandoned. Nearly destroy- ed by the spanish in 1599, Acoma was quickly reestablished by ancestors of its present occupants.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Acoma Sky City — 3.3 mi
  Haak'u, the village on a sandstone mesa west of Albuquerque, seen only on the pueblo's own tours, with a mission whose roof beams were carried on foot from Mount Taylor.
• El Malpais National Monument — 24 mi
  The badlands south of Grants: lava 3,900 years old from McCartys Crater, a tube system at least seventeen miles long, and an old trail across four lava flows between Zuni and Acoma.

More markers nearby

• The Battle of Khe Sanh, Vietnam 1968 — 9.4 mi
• Pueblo of Laguna — 9.6 mi
• Pueblo of Ácoma — 9.6 mi
• Old Acoma "Sky City" — 9.9 mi