Palace of the Governors

No public building in the United States has been in continuous use longer than the Palace of the Governors. Built as the seat of Spanish colonial government around 1610 — a decade before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth — it has served as capitol for Spain, the Pueblo Revolt's Native government, Mexico, the Confederacy, and the United States. Its long adobe portal in the heart of Santa Fe's plaza has witnessed nearly the entire span of European and American governance in the Southwest.

Spanish governor Pedro de Peralta built the low adobe Palace of the Governors around 1610 as the seat of the new colonial capital, Santa Fe. For nearly seven decades it governed the province of New Mexico until 1680, when the Pueblo peoples united in a coordinated revolt, driving the Spanish out and occupying the palace themselves for twelve years — the only successful Native uprising to expel a colonial power from North American soil for an extended period.

Spain reconquered Santa Fe in 1692 and reoccupied the palace, which continued as the seat of government through Mexican independence in 1821 and the brief Confederate occupation of Santa Fe during the Civil War in 1862. When the United States took New Mexico as a territory after 1846, the palace remained the territorial and then state capitol building, hosting governors including Lew Wallace, who is said to have written part of his novel Ben-Hur there.

The palace ceased to be the seat of government in 1909 and became a museum, now part of the New Mexico History Museum. Beneath its portal, Native American artisans have sold jewelry and crafts for generations under a long-running arts program, continuing a tradition of exchange in the plaza that stretches back centuries. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.