Reviews of Gran Quivira Visitor Center (Park)

Gerald Blea

Again, you must like history. great place to visit.

Linda Carroll

If you are a history buff, this place is absolutely a site you should visit.

TheGquintana

Great place to stop when your on a road trip with the family!

Charli Brown

We enjoyed this site. Rangers were very knowledgeable and helpful.

Birgit Maurer

What a beautiful trip to witness what life may very well have been like for the Pueblo people!

David Montes

Awesome place to visit

parmyman1 1985

Great place!

Jeanette Kreutner

Great information about the mission and history of the area.

Karen Atkinson

Great historical displays

Rob Lopez

Awesome place

Kathy Walker

Other worldly

Heath Leroue

Very interesting place to visit.

Laura Patriquin

This is an off the beaten path kind of place, but I did enjoy the visit. The visitors center has some high quality artifacts to see in addition to the ruins.

Holly Chavez

History at its finest!

Christy Harper

Beautiful, great views, friendly staff.

Marilee Acosta

Great place to visit if you're into historical sites.

Haywood Allison

Rich in history. Great volunteer at center with interesting information at this site.

carl kelley jr

Interesting to see

Spence Calder

Great parks. Address in Google Maps brings you to HQ. Make sure you enter the specific site you want to visit.

Escobaria Gracilis

Excellent park. The 3 missions are very interesting to visit. The 3 different missions are not too far from each other and the drive to them is very pretty. Each mission is different and merits each own visit. The trails to the missions are easy to walk . Each mission has nice has also a nice visitor center. Lots of history here.

James Moseley

Informative, beautiful location.

Billy McGriff

Very interesting.

07 f250 king ranch

Awesome history, neat place to visit

Mark Self

Must see, very well worth the drive. Amazing the work and skills of that time. Plus being ble to touch something that old. Very peaceful and tranquil!

Roger Hall

Very nice ruins. Well preserved. Easy to walk around and enjoy. Very large are to explore.

Eric Lin

Located at the heart of New Mexico, if you are driving from White Sands to the north(Santa Fe), you can choose route 55 and stop at this place. Worth visiting and beautiful view! Very well maintained.

Michael Arnall

Moved out of the hole into Cliff Dwellings with Spanish influence with clay must see

VIRGINIA Garrett

Very cool site. Bring sunscreen.

Neal Ackerly

Fabulously full of history! Visit asap!?

John Agria

Fantastic.

Sonya Rosalez

It was an experience to walk such a calm and beautiful place. We enjoyed it.

Alan Osterholtz

A great place to go see! Well worth the drive amazing structures and history to see

Joel Kogan

What a great place. Thank you NPS for preserving this history.

Matt Luce

Another somewhat out of the way gem in the middle of New Mexico. Good museum sections are available in the visitor center. The site itself consists of an easily accessible, paved, path through the reconstructed ruins. Spanish conquest, and preceding Las Humanas structures are mixed together. Mound 7 is especially interesting, as the excavation exposes different eras of construction at the site, all the way back to the Anasazi era.

Kris MC

Amazing to see these ruins in person.

Beverley Vess

Wow. Up close with ancient ruins.

Mike Johnson

Interesting

Carolyn Backer

Very interesting!

pimpin thug

Awesome history

Randy Parker

Quietly ghostly

Lynn Hudson

These ruins are enormous! We had a wonderful time exploring this well cared for site. The staff is fantastic. Be sure to take some time check out the visitor center and sign the guest book.

Paulette McCarthy

Very interesting. The park ranger was very nice and informative.

jimssarah .

A little known archeological wonder. So well preserved. A delight to wander the paths and learn about its history. Beautiful visitors center although small. The ranger on duty was so friendly and helpful.

Rose and Mike Farmer

Some history from bygone Puebloan days. This is the largest of several National Monuments in this same area of New Mexico. A trail to the top of the hill leads to partially restored outline of how the people lived. Visitor center has good displays.

Linda Overman

Very interesting. Well worth the trip.

Ray Gallagher

Very interested and historical. Enjoyed our visit!

Hank Marks

It took me a few hours to drive out here. The Ranger there knew a ton about the missions. There is a short path around the center mission. This is the one that is excavated and there are quite a few places to get some nice views. The church is bigger than expected and you do have the chance to see inside. Watch out as there are quite a few rattlesnakes out on the paths and the danger from lightning is rather high.

Joy Sharp

Amazing example of an ancestral Pueblo

Ken Frazier

Very impressive. Had the whole place to myself as I visited on a weekday. Worth the ride up from Mountain Air and I would definitely visit this again

Vincent Rebetez

Les Salinas Pueblo Missions NM sont trois ruines d'anciennes missions espagnoles. Les trois endroits sont très différents. Gran Quivira est le plus grand et assez intéressant à visiter. Quarai est très différent car tout en roches rouges. Abo est très jolie aussi et également fait de roches rouges.

minerva roman

Hermoso....mi familia y yo salimos facinados...mis hijas felices...buena experiencia...

Patrick Breeding

Amazing place to touch a piece of history, dogs are allowed as long as they are leashed but bring plenty of water!!!

Maryann Lopez

Salinas, Quarai and Abo were excellent tours given by the Los Lunas Museum of Heritage and Art. Beautiful views and landscape Great History Lessons.

duffy Laws

Park ranger was very knowledgeable and friendly.

Kenny Dillingham

Spread out over 3 locations, it'll take all day to see, but so worth it. The ruins are like no other, including Chaco Canyon.

David Turko

Not much to see, but if you like history, it may be worth the drive.

Edgar Broerman

Very nice and full of history

Jessica Harman

Beautiful location. Easy to get to.

robert sotela

A must visit site with beautiful surroundings

Chris Luth

Nice and fairly well-preserved Spanish-era ruins of a settlement. Note this is NOT the primary visitor center, which is located about half an hour north in the actual town of Mountainair. This is one of three remote units of the park. There is a small visitor's center and a National Parks Passport stamp on site, though the park orientation film is not shown here. I have submitted a map edit to Google to adjust the name to reflect that this is the Gran Quivira site and not the main National Monument site, but as of 5/16/18, it has not yet been approved.

Michael Siebke

Gut erhaltene und sehr gepflegte Historie. Der Weg lohnt sich!!!

maliah-mae pennington

Make sure u where good walking shoes

John M.

Worth it if you were in the area. I wouldn't go too far out of the way for you if you aren't however

Marianna Chinellato

Il pueblo di Gran Quivira è in una posizione a dir poco spettacolare! Attenzione perche da Mountainair si percorrono circa 30miglia in mezzo al nulla quindi...serbatoio pieno! E anche se sembra non raggiungere mai la meta.... Abbiate fede e continuate perche nonostante le poche indicazioni... Si arriva!!!

Bin Xie

Nice mission and wonderful NPS guard, spell the picture of loneliness and history. No much cell phone signal here. The view is wonderful.

Kendra Lynn

Beautiful place. Clean and well kept, loved it!

Fran kie

Super beautiful

Don Barrett

This is a remote, but very accessible, monument with well-preserved structures and excellent documentation around the site. Well worth a visit, and an excellent lesson in American Indian / mission history.

Jason Connell

Alway`s enjoy the scenery and great people associated with the spiritual experience of the monument`s.

John Matthews

It's a bit of a drive but it is definitely a great experience.

Nancy Aguilar

What an amazing experience. A must.

Barry Ore

It was exciting to arrive to this exotic location, which is shrouded in mystery. The historical context of a peaceful Pueblo people who were essentially invaded and conquered by Spaniards in the name of smallpox, having their culture wiped out and being forced to worship a new god and erect colonial churches, is chilling. It brings an eerie contemplative state to even walk amongst the tattered ruins, along with an existential pondering that Thoreau himself would have delved into. I highly recommend making this trip, but it us not for the faint of heart. Stay tuned for Barry's adventures to Utah this weekend...

Lil M.

Beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking. Bring proper shoes, sunscreen and water because you'll want to spend some time looking around and taking pictures. Paths are steep and uneven at times so use caution.

Robert Tusch

Great place to visit and imagine yourself as one of the native Americans in 1670. Upkeep is perfect and staff is very helpful. A must visit place.

William Hofmann

History Live

Dion Choi

The only Salinas mission with excavated pueblo strutures to view. Gran Quivera has two incomplete cathedrals to explore. The largest structures of the salt missions and made of limestone unlike its sisters mission

Mac Schoen

The mystery you feel growing when visiting this site and exploring is explained very well on the NPS website. You learn so much about the indigenous and colonial history of the site and region from a visit here and some additional reading. Worth the detour or trip out!

Barbara Tweed

Amazing place with excellent information from the park rangers

Joseph Matthews

One of my favorite places. Not a lot of visitors so you might have it to yourself. It's a good place to hear quiet. Good stories here even if sad.

Scott Lyford

Really impressive ruins. There was a pueblo here before the Spanish arrived in the early 1600’s, built of rock rather than adobe. The setting is great - highest point for miles around with great views in all directions, easy to see why they chose it. Water was always a problem, and a drought in the years around 1670 caused it’s final abandonment. Really off the beaten path but a beautiful part of New Mexico.

Rafael Lecuona

Magical at dusk!

Epi Parraz

Very interesting.. enjoyed the telescopes also...

Patrick Doyle

Well worth the drive off the beaten path. Very scenic country.

Kellie Masterson

This place is beautiful...... trail was well taken care of

Latham Winfree

A very nice facility. Actually, three building, one at each location, plus main visitors center. Way under utilized.

Berna Lovato

Must visit!!!!

Phil Trivilino

Very interesting, important historical significance in native and us history.

Robert Benavides

Great history of native people does not tell the whole story of the people being made slaves for the Spanish but does it ever also the ranger was very unfriendly and not helpful on information about anything

Celeste Ruppelt

You'll find this almost unknown National Monument about 25-miles south of Mountainair, NM. If you wish to stay in the area, the nearest town with hotels and services would be Moriarty, east of Albuquerque on I-40. Its roughly 40-miles. Gran Quivira is one of three missions of the Salinas Pueblo Missions spread across roughly 40-miles, near Mountainair. It is the farthest away at 26-miles. The main Visitor Center is in Mountainair, but each pueblo has its own Ranger Contact Station, with adequate parking and restrooms. Some have picnic areas and even small play places. Construction of the missions began in 1622 with the advent of the Franciscan priests and was completed in 1635 . Gran Quivira was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. In these pueblos, the National Park Service has this pet policy: "Leashed pets are allowed on the trails, provided the owners will clean up any messes the pets might make". We visited Gran Quivira. It is the largest of the three, with 7 kivas and well over 200 rooms, and is only partly reconstructed, including two church ruins. The Franciscans came on order of the Spanish king, who in turn had orders from the Pope to 'christianize' the natives of the New World. None of the three pueblos had a full-time priest, so when the nearest priest travelled to visit on rare occasions, they were known as ‘visitias’. Efforts began in good order on the building of Gran Quivira. The pueblo started out with a good reserve of stored food and became so busy, learning the new language, taking Christian-Catholic classes to learn the new faith, building the second and much larger church, and quarters for the priest to stay in, that they had no time to work in the fields to raise the crops. Since there were three years of food reserves, this was not a problem and they ate into those reserves. Then there was a severe drought which resulted in a famine. By 1670, 70% of the population was dead, (450 at Gran Quivira alone) having starved to death. This ended the construction effort and destroyed the pueblo. Today, the ruins are left for us to see and contemplate this life lifestyle. They are remarkably well -preserved due to the arid climate. There is a paved .05 trail running through the ruins. where one is free to explore at will. Be advised that the sun is very bright and strong and sunburn happens quickly. It is hot and dry and there is no shade. We found the Ranger very helpful and interesting. He obviously loved his work and this isolated place.

mark lewis

Unexpected gem... kinda ran across it by accident and loved it! Can't wait to get back with the grandchildren!

Heike Rice

Out of the three ruins in the area, this is my favourite one. Definitely worth the drive to get there.

Sara B

The hike was nice. The visitor center wasn't opened.

Thomas Wiczek

Good. In & Out. Got info for the future.