While considerable civic attention is focused on preserving Corrales’ old buildings, adobe ruins and collapsing structures are as much a part of the community’s cultural context as roasting chile and sandhill cranes.

Adobe structures in various stages of disintegration are scattered throughout the village, but are often passed unnoticed. Nearly all of them are in the bottomlands of Corrales, where settlers had preferred to build since the 1600s… wait, make that since the 1200s.

Some of these ruins are little more than depressions or mounds in the earth, but usually there are tell-tale indications that a significant structure once stood there.

But how much longer will Corraleños’ collective memory inform us about what these old remnants of homes and ranchos mean? 

Where there is now scant evidence of walls remaining, vital, active lives were once led. Family histories unfolded —and then, slowly, the old homes began to melt back into the earth.

A classic visual example of this aspect of Corrales life sits just a few feet from the north side of West La Entrada, a hundred yards or so west of the Corrales Library. 

The corner walls of what was once a fairly large adobe building rise less than four feet from the ground, surrounded by adobe mud rubble. The owner of the land now, who did not want to be identified, thinks the house that stood there may have been  home to descendants of Corrales’ founder, Capitán Juan Gonzales Bas.

He recalls that a member of the Gonzales family visited the site and said she had once lived there.

“We bought the property about 30 years ago, and  it looked about like it does now,” the current owner said. “There have been lots of critters living in the crawl holes in the mound there.”

He said great quantities of ceramic pottery shards have been found on the parcel, especially when a swimming pool was excavated.

The old building on West La Entrada was recorded in a 1981 historic building survey conducted by Betsy Swan. It was reported to have served as a “village center” while the structure was still sound, but later its main use was as a school bus stop.

Former Corrales Planning and Zoning Administrator Taudy Smith recalled waiting there to catch the bus in the 1960s and 70s.

The current landowner believes the structure may have been demolished to its present state on the order of Village officials who considered it a safety hazard.

Another ruin that’s even less likely to  catch the eye of an uninformed passerby is now little more than a mud oval beside a low concrete footing or stemwall. It is located south of Manierre Road, on the west side of Corrales Road, under a stand of young and old elm trees.

This residential ruin of adobe and wood materials, was the home of Arsenio Armijo, grandfather of José Armijo. It seems to have burned at some point, which may have led to its abandonment.

Several old adobe buildings are not quite in ruins, but clearly are on their way. So far no public discussion has proposed salvaging them, so generations of current and future Corraleños can expect to witness their gradual disappearance. At least, until such time as Village officials or contemporary owners have them demolished, either to make way for new structures or to avoid liability as the old buildings become recognized hazards.

One of those is the old home on the south side of Coronado Road, perhaps a hundred yards south of Quilts Olé and Lavender Lamb. The L-shaped structure covered in grey stucco has at least two sections of adobe wall opening up. A raccoon has been spotted taking shelter through one of those gaps in recent weeks.

The building is next to the area that was once under consideration for purchase by early Village leaders as the site for Corrales’ first municipal park. Instead the Village purchased the land now known as La Entrada Park on which the library was built.

But the old, now collapsing home at 91 Coronado Road has another distinction.  It was here that Corrales matriarch Evelyn Curtis Losack met her future husband, Johnny Losack. Back in 1946 the property was owned by Martha Losack, Johnny’s mother.

The house is believed to have been built by the Fitzgerald family in the 1800s. Martha Losack sold it to the Merriam family in 1948, along with 40 acres that extended up to what is now Corrales’ boundary with Rio Rancho.

The remnant parcel at 91 Coronado is now owned by Gloria Ashcroft, who lives in the modern home immediately to the west of the old adobe. Ashcroft has said it would cost too much to renovate the 1,800 square foot structure, probably more than $100,000.

The building is said to be more than 120 years old, constructed of terrones (sod block). As is said to be the case for several other old buildings in Corrales, this structure was at one time the community dance hall.

Another old home probably on its way to oblivion is at 6525 Corrales Road, near the corner of Corrales Road and Rome Lane.  The small home with a pitched roof has a large cottonwood tree  behind it.  Near it is a stand-alone addition built in the same style.

The property on which it sits is now for sale.

By far the largest ruin in Corrales lies nearby, unseen and unknown by most villagers. 

A Native American pueblo complex sits beneath —or rather, is— a large mound on the west side of Corrales Road across from the entrance to Sego Lane.

A recorded archeological site only scantly explored, the largest of four buildings there is estimated to have 50 to 200 rooms, according to Corrales archeologist Mike Marshall, who lives nearby.

The site was first documented in the 1920s and 30s, and later partially excavated by Gwen Vivian, when the Pueblo ruin was known as the Kaufman site.

What was once a multi-storied, Taos Pueblo-style community is now noticed, if at all, as a significant mound in what is now a nearly flat river valley.

Marshall believes the complex constructed of adobe was started in the 1200s and remained inhabited until around the time of the Pueblo Revolt.

The mound near Corrales Road is just one of several farther west from the road that conceal ancient dwellings probably occupied by ancestors of people now living at Sandia Pueblo.