1. Battlefield New Mexico: The Civil War And More
City: La Cienega, NM
Category: Annual Events & Festivals
Telephone: (505) 471-2261
Address: 334 Los Pinos Rd.
Description: The first weekend of May, families can step back in time to the days of the Civil War and New Mexico’s Battle of Glorieta at the annual Civil War Weekend festival at this living-history museum just south of Santa Fe. (See our Attractions chapter for more information on the museum.) Between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. both days, you’ll have an opportunity to watch artillery and marching demonstrations, experience camp life, and see reenactments of the historic 1862 battles around Glorieta, New Mexico, between Union and Confederate troops. At noon, the New Mexico Territorial Brass Band plays period songs. This event is co-sponsored by the New Mexico Civil War Commemorative Congress. Food is available. Children younger than age five always get in free.
2. Summer Festival, Frontier Days, And Horses Of The West
City: La Cienega, NM
Category: Annual Events & Festivals
Telephone: (505) 471-2261
Address: 334 Los Pinos Rd.
Description: This outdoor museum comes to life the first weekend in August with an old-fashioned Mountain Man market and a festival celebrating the bounty of summer. Events include characters dressed as mountain men, soldiers, traders, and gunfighters, as well as music, dance, art, and fun for the whole family. Events run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. Children younger than age five always get in free.
3. Harvest Festival
City: La Cienega, NM
Category: Annual Events & Festivals
Telephone: (505) 471-2261
Address: 334 Los Pinos Rd.
Description: The Harvest Festival gives modern visitors a chance to see what the harvest season of the Spanish colonial era was like. Harvest meant hard work in early New Mexico, but the visitors at the reenactment get to have fun. Special events for this weekend in late September or early October depict life on an old ranch using volunteers in the costumes of the time. Music and dancing, artists, and craftspeople selling their work, and the baking and sampling of bread and biscochitos, New Mexico’s famous anise and sugar cookies, add to the fun. Visitors can see a wheelwright at work, attend an outdoor mass, and join a procession in honor of San Ysidro. Adding to the harvest ambience, volunteers demonstrate techniques for stringing chiles into ristras, preparing fruits and vegetables for drying, making sorghum molasses, shelling corn and making chicos (dried corn to last the winter), crushing grapes for wine, and threshing wheat. The farm’s animals—burros, horses, goats, sheep, turkeys, geese, ducks, and chickens—are always popular with children. Events run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and food is available! Children younger than age five always get in free.