Pueblo of San Ildefonso

The church on the plaza took the whole pueblo ten years. The 1711 mission was long gone, factional quarrels had once made the building itself a battleground, and a tin-roofed church of 1905 lasted only until the late 1950s. From 1958 the community raised a likeness of the 1711 church in adobe; with no large pines on San Ildefonso land, Santa Clara gave standing timber for the vigas. It was dedicated on December 15, 1968. The pueblo's own name, Po-woh-ge-oweenge, means where the water cuts through.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Pueblo of San Ildefonso In the 1500s, migrants from the Pajarito Plateau joined their Tewa- speaking relatives at San Ildefonso. The pueblo is famous as the home of the late María Martínez and other makers of polished black pottery. The modern church, a replica of that of 1711, was finished in 1968.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fuller Lodge — 10 mi
  The upright-log dining hall of a boys' ranch school, which fed and housed the Manhattan Project after the Army bought the school in 1942.
• Bandelier National Monument — 11 mi
  Rooms carved into soft volcanic tuff in Frijoles Canyon, named for a Swiss scholar who was led there in 1880 by a man from Cochiti Pueblo.
• El Santuario de Chimayó — 13 mi
  A small adobe shrine on the High Road to Taos, built around 1816 over earth that pilgrims still carry away in hope of healing.
• Palace of the Governors — 17 mi
  The long adobe on the north side of the Santa Fe plaza, called the oldest public building in continuous use in the country, though its own founding date is in dispute.

More markers nearby

• Maria Montoya Martinez — steps away
• Jémez Mountains — 0.9 mi
• Feliciana Tapia Viarrial (1904-1988) — 5.9 mi
• Los Alamos — 7.3 mi