Open: Year-Round
Juan de Oñate received permission from the King of Spain to conduct the first colonization expedition far into the interior of what is today New Mexico, 1,500 miles away. Departing Zacatecas, the Oñate Expedition passed through the dry Chihuahuan Desert and crossed the Rio Grande at today's El Paso in early 1598. Oñate continued through the Jornada del Muerto desert to the San Juan Pueblo, declaring it the capitol of New Spain, then to Santa Fe in 1603.
For 300 years, El Camino Real was the only road into New Mexico and the Southwest, bringing thousands of settlers from Mexico and Spain into the region. Even the famed Santa Fe Trail did not come along until 1821, connecting New Mexico to the United States for the first time. This is why so many of the people in New Mexico today are of early Mexican or Spanish decent. It was their ancestors that settled along the Rio Grande by way of the long, dusty trail called El Camino Real.
El Camino Real began to wane in the mid-1880s with the arrival of the railroad, transporting people and supplies along the Rio Grande in hours that used to take weeks. As a result, most historians cite the use of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro was from 1598 through 1885. However, in the early 1900s, automobiles traveled El Camino Real, serving as the first highway from El Paso to Santa Fe, restoring life to the old trail for a short time.
