Los Cerrillos, NM

Los Cerrillos sits along New Mexico State Highway 14, the Turquoise Trail between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The Santa Fe County CDP had 258 residents in the 2020 census and remains shaped by a mining history that reaches back through Pueblo turquoise and galena work, the 1879 mining boom, and the railroad's arrival in 1880. That history left a village of dirt streets, surviving churches and commercial buildings, galleries, a post office, and the Cerrillos Turquoise Mining Museum. The Galisteo Basin around the village holds the older archaeological story.

Current local routines have a strong outdoor and historic center. Cerrillos Hills State Park is New Mexico's 34th state park, a year-round day-use park with five miles of trails, protected mine shafts, a visitor center, and a village overlook. The park sits just across the tracks from the village and is reached from County Road 59. Los Cerrillos is also within Santa Fe Public Schools, zoned to schools in the larger Santa Fe system. Highway 14, the park, the museum, and the old village core connect local life to the metropolitan area.