Pajarito Land Grant in Albuquerque, NM

Pajarito Land Grant is a historic Spanish tract southwest of Albuquerque, bounded on the east by the Rio Grande and on the west by the Rio Puerco. Josefa Baca acquired the Sitio de San Ysidro de Pajarito in the mid-1700s and ran sheep, cattle and goats on it; her son later sold the tract to Clemente Gutierrez, whose family farmed and ranched it for generations. The Court of Private Land Claims confirmed the grant in 1894 and patented it in 1914. Much of the ground is open mesa roughly ten miles from central Albuquerque, where parcels run large, roads are informal and utility service thins out fast.

The grant covers about 47,000 acres and is one of 69 New Mexico grants the United States confirmed out of 272 claimed. Its plazas were laid out before the town of Albuquerque existed, alongside Atrisco and Los Padillas, and the valley floor still shows long, narrow fields running perpendicular to the acequias that water them. Isleta Boulevard traces the old Camino Real down the same corridor.

On the mesa itself, settlement began in the 1970s and grew into a scattered rural community that the 2020 census counted at 260 people, largely without piped water, electric service or formal roads. No homeowners association governs the area.