Tijeras is the Southern Gateway to the Turquoise Trail.  Spanish for "scissors", where 2 canyons come together.  It is located at the western entrance to the Tijeras canyon on Historic Highway 66.  The Turquoise Trail officially starts at the Cibola National Forest Ranger Station, which is on the south side of the village and is well worth the stop.  The Pueblo people left in the 1500's and the Spanish arrived over 280 years ago.  Tijeras has become the active crossroads for almost everyone east of Albuquerque.

See Destination: Tijeras for more Details, Extended History and related Links.

Formally known as San Antonio de Padua, the town of San Antonio might be compared to a sort of mountainside schoolyard, with cliques of trees and homes and businesses all standing aloof from one another, and with rocky green hills supervising everything from above.   Named for the patron saint St. Anthony of Padua.

In San Antonio, the present and the past are inseparable.

For a small town, Cedar Crest is large.  It contains multitudes.  Within its vaguely defined boundaries lie the former Spanish settlements of El Rancho and Rancho Colorado, multiple former resort communities, and the undeniable and undying legacy of a man named Carl Webb.  

Cedar Crest's post office arrived in 1925 and the village became a sprawling mountainside community strung along both sides of a highway, set among high green desert hills.

The village of San Antonito can sometimes seem like nothing more than a part of nearby Sandia Park, like just the intersection of Frost Road and the highway, a scenic stop for gas where an undulating ridge of the Sandias’ peaks swings along the western horizon.  Like all the towns of the Sandia Mountains, however, San Antonito has a story.

Sandia Park is a mountain community far more mountain than community, where the number of ponderosa pines increases with the number of feet above sea level, red-brown rocks protrude from wooded hillsides, old and angular cabins hide behind trees, and Cienega Creek trickles into a shining manmade pond.  Settled around the 1920s along the road to the Sandias’ highest peak, Sandia Park began as a loose collection of high altitude summer homes owned by affluent families from Albuquerque.

Golden, was inhabited by Native Americans and Spaniards long before American settlers arrived.  Golden began to flourish with a gold strike in 1825, this was years before the gold rushes in California and Colorado.

Today, Golden residents and artisans work hard to maintain the historic character of this sleepy village.

See Destination: Golden for more Details, Extended History and related Links.

Madrid is in the oldest coal mining region in New Mexico.  There is evidence of mining in Ortiz Mountains as early as the 1850's, by 1899 all coal production in the area was consolidated at Madrid.  The town flourished as a "Company Town" with some 2,500 people.

Today, Madrid with a quint dirt residential streets and a busy main street filled with merchants and artisans, welcomes visitors from across the world.
 

Visiting Cerrillos is like traveling back in time.  Many of the buildings are from the late 1800's and still occupied by the town's residents.  Imagine you're walking down the dirt street, it's 1880 and you spot Billy the Kid in the saloon having a warm beer.  Then you hear the distant whistle of the noon train.  It's all possible in Cerrillos. 

See Destination: Cerrillos for more Details, Extended History and Related Links.

Santa Fe is the Northern Gateway to the Turquoise Trail and is the oldest city in the United States. 

The Turquoise Trail officially starts at I-25 on historic Cerrillos Avenue, which was leads to downtown Santa Fe and was Historic Highway 66, prior to 1937.