BACA

NAME: BACA COUNTY: MORA ROADS: 2WD GRID: 3 CLIMATE: no need to worry about the weather BEST TIME TO VISIT: any time

COMMENTS: BACA. Span. 'cow'. First postmaster Louis A. C. de Baca, 1884/1898. Mail to Bueyeros.BACA. Lincoln County. 3 mi N of Lincoln.BACA. McKinley County. REMAINS: Inquire locally

BACA. The family name originated in the thirteenth century during the Moorish wars in Spain. An individual who had marked a strategic river ford with a cows skull was rewarded by the King with the name Cabeza de Vaca (cows head). Members of this family came to the New World even before famed Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Baca made his transcontinental trek (1528/1536). In 1600 , Capt. Cristobal Baca, a native of Mexico City, came to NM and several of his great grandsons returned with the reconquest of 1692, settling in the Santa Fe region. Around 1800, Luis Maria Baca, one of the many sons of Juan Antonio Baca of La Cienega began using the full name, Cabeza de Baca. Civil as well as church records show thatit is the same family. A popular place name in New Mexico. Submitted by: Samuel W McWhorter

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