National Register Listing

Palace of the Governors

Palace Avenue at Santa Fe Plaza, Santa Fe, NM

One of America's oldest public buildings of European origin, the Palace of the Governors has been in constant use since the early seventeenth century. For nearly 300 years the building was the seat of government in Santa Fe, the oldest continuously occupied capital in the United States. Originally constructed facing a central plaza by Spanish settlers loosely following the dictates of Spanish Colonial town planning ordinances, the building served as the capitol of New Mexico and the governor's residence during the Spanish Colonial era (1610-1680; 1693-1821) and the Mexican (1821-1846) periods. After the American occupation (1846) and subsequent formation of the New Mexico Territory, the Palace served as the territorial capitol until 1886 and governor's residence until 1909. The building was also occupied twice in widely separated conflicts, first by the native Pueblo Indians (1680-1693) and about 200 years later briefly by the Confederacy (1862). After a new capitol was constructed, the former legislative halls and other rooms were turned over to the territorial Historical Society, whose exhibits were the territory's only public museum not connected with a business establishment. In 1907 ownership of the building was transferred from the federal to the territorial government and it became the headquarters of the School of American Archaeology, founded that year by the Archaeological Institute of American as the first school in North America devoted to American archaeology. Two years later the newly founded Museum of New Mexico was also located in the Palace under joint leadership with the school. The Palace remains today the premier museum of New Mexico history in the state. In 1909-1913, scholars and personnel of the school and museum undertook a restoration of the building as a "monument to the Spanish founders of the civilization of the Southwest," by recreating elements of what they believed may have been its Spanish Colonial appearance. Much of the nineteenth century fabric of the building was retained: most notably in fenestration. As remodeled the Palace became a seminal building in the formation of a new style, now called the Spanish-Pueblo-Revival and one of America's first period revivals of the twentieth century. In 1957 this style, together with the Territorial Revival, were mandated by ordinance in Santa Fe's newly designated historic district, and have come to dominate Santa Fe. The inevitability of alteration in adobe construction, a fragile and highly mutable medium, is only magnified in a building of such import with a history of long, and constant use. Nevertheless, each era has left its mark. Some walls and aspects of the floor plan may date from the late seventeenth century; there is fenestration representative of the nineteenth-century; and Territorial period remains are intact or have been recreated. The building stands today as a seminal work in the highly successful period revival that created the major cultural tourism destination Santa Fe has become. The Palace of the Governors, of national significance for both its history and architecture, was designated a National Historic Landmark on October 9, 1960. Believed to be the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States, the Palace still faces the public plaza. Well maintained, the building continues to represent its historic and architectural significance.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1966.