Corrales Heritage Day is Saturday, May 19. Day-long activities, exhibits and entertainment are scheduled at the Old Church and Casa San Ysidro Museum.

This year’s event also celebrates the 300th anniversary of the Alameda Land Grant  acquisition by Corrales’ founder as well as New Mexico’s 100th anniversary of statehood. 

Presentations will focus on how the land grant was acquired by Capitán Juan Gonzales Bas 300 years  ago. On display will be photographs of early Corrales buildings and how they appear today.

Activities will run continuously from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Old Church and the museum across the road.

Data from the 1910 census will be shown comparing it to information from the 2010 census report. A new event this year will be Corrales author and chef Jane Butel’s  illustrated talk on the culinary history of the Rio Grande valley. That will begin at 11 a.m. 

Among other activities on Heritage Day will be showing of the video “Heart of the Village: a history of the Old San Ysidro Church.” An assortment of activities for children will be under way.

A guided tour of the San Ysidro cemetery will be offered  by the Corrales Historical Society’s Archives Committee.

In seeking a proclamation for Corrales Heritage Day, the Archive Committee’s Stan Betzer explained that the original Alameda Land Grant by the King of Spain was given to another colonist who failed to perfect his title to the thousands of acres in the grant. 

So the title was acquired by a leading citizen of the era, Capitán Juan Gonzales Bas, who was a farmer, military officer, sheep rancher and silversmith.

At first, Gonzales Bas was named alcalde mayor of Bernalillo, and later was appointed as alcalde mayor of Albuquerque. He died in 1743, but several of his descendants still live in Corrales today.