Valles Caldera National Preserve Travel Guide — Things to Do, Food & Hotels
mountain in United States of America
About Valles Caldera National Preserve
The Valles Caldera has had an unusual history that has given it a unique position among United States national parks. After a long pre-history of occupation by ancestral Puebloans and later Spanish settlers, the caldera and the surrounding Jemez Mountains passed into United States control after the Mexican-American War. At this time it wasn't viewed as particularly significant: a remote, if scenic, area of what seemed to be grazing land within a newly acquired territory, of little commercial interest to anyone but the old Spanish families that had already settled and pastured livestock there, sometimes in the face of considerable hostility from nearby Indian populations. Consequently, when a bill was passed in the United States Congress in 1860 to compensate the Baca family, a pioneerin
Valles Caldera National Preserve Travel Guide Sections
Our comprehensive guide covers 13 sections including: