El Quartelejo Sunrise Poster

The ruins of El Cuartelejo Pueblo . This historical anomaly, the northernmost such structure in the United States, dates to around 1664- the same year Increase Mather was ordained at the Old North Church of Boston. Built by Taos Indians fleeing Spanish oppression in the Rio Grande valley, the site was later claimed and used as a trading post/fortress by the battling Spanish and French who exchanged control of the area several times, as well as later occupied by Picuris and Plains Apaches, before being abandoned and forgotten to the sands of time. Located within the beautiful valley of Lake Scott State Park, the remains of the pueblo's several rooms were discovered by local settler and farmer Herbert Steele in 1894, when he observed ground squirrels emerging from their burrows above the site with cheeks full of Indian corn. He had been using the very same spring-fed irrigation canals the original builders had constructed for their own fields, not knowing they were man-made until he discovered the remains of the ancient building itself. The site is now owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was excavated and partially rebuilt in the early 1970's. There is currently a drive underway in the state to raise funds to build a visitor's center on the site, where artifacts currently stored and on view at the KU Museum of Natural History and elsewhere would be returned and displayed, which will be a real boon to local tourism.