Los Padillas in Albuquerque, NM

Los Padillas is a historic village in Albuquerque's South Valley, strung along Isleta Boulevard on the west bank of the Rio Grande in unincorporated Bernalillo County. It predates the city: Spanish land grants seeded the settlement, and Diego de Padilla resettled family ground here in 1718, decades after the Pueblo Revolt forced his grandparents off it. The old geometry survives in long narrow parcels running back from the acequias, with farmland and pasture between the houses and the bosque at the eastern edge. The county's community center and Jerry Jaramillo Park sit at its core.

Spanish records list the place as San Andres de los Padillas; the 1790 census counted 168 people. A schoolhouse went up in 1901 and was rebuilt in 1912.

Los Padillas Elementary keeps a five-acre wildlife sanctuary on its campus, with a pond, an arroyo, cottonwoods and an interpretive trail; third-grade classes from across the district visit it. County planning for the Isleta Boulevard corridor describes exactly the mix the village shows on the ground: old beside new, urban beside rural, houses beside small commercial lots.