About this property
The Palace of the Governors (Spanish: Palacio de los Gobernadores) is an adobe structure built in the Territorial Style of Pueblo architecture on Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Located within the Santa Fe Historic District along the Santa Fe Plaza between Lincoln and Washington avenues, it served as the seat of government for New Mexico for centuries, having been established as the capitol building of Nuevo México in 1610. It was New Mexico's seat of government until 1901. In 1610, Pedro de Peralta, the newly appointed governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México covering most of the modern American Southwest, began construction on the Palace of the Governors, though some recent historical research has suggested that construction began midway through his term in 1618. In the following years, the Palace changed hands as the territory of New Mexico did, seeing the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the Spanish return from 1693 to 1694, Mexican independence in 1821, American territorial status in 1848, and US statehood in 1912. The Palace originally served as the seat of government of the Spanish colony of Nuevo Mexico, which at one time comprised the present-day states of Texas, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. After the Mexican War of Independence, the Mexican province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México was administered from the Palace of the Governors. When New Mexico was annexed as a U.S. territory, the Palace became New Mexico's first territorial capitol. Lew Wallace wrote the final parts of his book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in this building while serving as territorial governor in the late 1870s. He remembered later in life that it was at night, during a severe thunderstorm in the spring of 1879, after returning from a tense meeting with Billy the Kid in Lincoln County, when he wrote the climactic Crucifixion scenes of the novel. Wallace worked by the light of a shaded lamp in the shuttered governor's study, fearing a bullet from outside over the tensions surrounding the Lincoln County War. In 1909 anthropologist Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett invited the young archeologist Jesse L. Nusbaum to oversee the restoration of the Palace of the Governors that had fallen into disrepair. For this assignment, which was completed in the Fall of 1913, Jesse L. Nusbaum was hired as the first employee of the Dr. Edgar Lee Hewett led School of American Archaeology, later the School of American Research, and Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In his journal, Nusbaum stressed the importance of melding the Palace architecture with the environment, noting that "the Palace was begun with an adaptation to climate and atmosphere and had been fitted into the color of earth and sky.", a view he later applied again as Superintendent of Mesa Verde National Park.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Palace of the Governors listed on the National Register?
Palace of the Governors was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 14, 1966.
What type of historic resource is Palace of the Governors?
Palace of the Governors is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
Is Palace of the Governors a National Historic Landmark?
Yes. Palace of the Governors has been designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL), the highest level of federal recognition for historic properties in the United States.
What is the period of significance for Palace of the Governors?
The period of significance for Palace of the Governors is recorded as the colonial era, specifically around 1610.
Can I research the history near Palace of the Governors?
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