Santa Fe

The board dates itself by its numbers. Population 58,000 is a count Santa Fe had already passed when the 2000 census found 62,203; the 2020 census counted 87,505. Oldest capital city in the United States holds among the state capitals, though San Juan, capital of Puerto Rico since the 1500s, is older. The board stands on Cerrillos Road, which carried Route 66 out of the city to the southwest from 1926 until the 1937 bypass. The plaque's own error, it's for its, sits in the line about the Palace of the Governors.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Santa Fe On the Camino Real Population 58,000 - Elevation 7,045 Santa Fe, the oldest capital city in the United States, was estab- lished in 1610 as the seat of Span- ish colonial government for the Province of New Mexico. The Palace of the Governors, used by Spanish, Mexican, and Territorial governors, has flanked the his- toric plaza since it's construction in 1610, and now comprises part of the Museum of New Mexico.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Palace of the Governors — 3.2 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.
• Bandelier National Monument — 18 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.
• Pecos National Historical Park — 18 mi
  The red walls of a 1717 mission church inside the foundations of a far larger one, beside the kiva Pecos people dug in front of the old church during the revolt of 1680.
• Fuller Lodge — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Agua Fria — 1.2 mi
• San Isidro Catholic Church — 1.5 mi
• Inez Bushner Gill (1918-1982) and Maralyn Budke (1936-2010) — 2.9 mi
• Doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche — 3.0 mi