Approaching from the west, Abo Ruins is the first site that I come upon, located at 6100 feet elevation and nine miles west of Mountainair, New Mexico. It′s name comes from the Abo formation of red sandstone, an outcropping of which is located just northwest of the ruins.

This pueblo, a major trading station during its time is reported to date back to the early 1300′s. Arriving first in 1581, Spanish Franciscans found the area ripe for their missionary efforts and founded missions in the early 1600′s.

However, due to a combination of disease, drought, famine, and Apache raiding, Abo was abandoned by 1672. Too, by 1680, the entire Salinas District, as the Spanish had named it, was depopulated of both Indian and Spaniard.

What remains today are the austere yet beautiful remains of this earliest contact between native American stone stackers and Spanish colonial missionaries. The ruins of the three of the stone worker pueblos together with the three mission churches, at Abó, Gran Quivira and Quarai are part of the national park service.