GRAN QUIVERA

NAME: GRAN QUIVERA COUNTY: TORRANCE ROADS: 2WD GRID: 5 CLIMATE: Sit back and enjoy our weather! BEST TIME TO VISIT: Any time

COMMENTS: GRAN QUIVERA: Post office 1904/1909. MONUMENT OF GRAN QUIVERA: This name at one time was associated with all the unknown land W of the Mississippi and E or N of the Gulf of California. Michael Lok's 1582 map shows Quivera at the tip of the western continent with culiacan, Galicia, and Florida covering the rest of the ara between Canada and Mexico. Twitchell, 'Leading Facts of NM History, 1, 231-233, note 2150, quotes Adolph Bandelier: 'At foot of the Mesa de los Jumanos there was Tabira now famous under the misleading name of "La Gran Quivera". However, on L'Atlas Curieux (1700) both Tavira and Gran uivira are shown: Tavira E of Socorro and S of Santa Fe; Gran Quivira in large letters at the N edge of the Mar de las Californias o Carlinas (Gulf of California or Carolinas).Juan Vasquez de Coronado sought for Quivira in 1540/1542, as the country was reported to him by the Indian called The Turk. Benavides, in 1634, refers to the 'kingdom of quivira' in the west and another of the same name in the east. The references are too numerous to cite. It has been suggested that the word comes from French, cuiri, 'copper' and that Indfians got the term from Jacaues Cartier, who was on the St. Lawrence before Coronado was on the Rio Grande. Professor Lansing Bloom proposed that may have been derived from the Arabic word quivir, 'big' illustrated in Spanish place names as Guadalquivir. A third etymology is a Spanish corruption of Wichita Kirkurus, named for that tribe. The great Spanish mission in Torrance County is completely disintegrated, but the earliest church was built in 1629 and the massive walls of the second church and its attached monastery and covent, on which work began about 1649, are still standing. REMAINS: A plenty. Stupendous!

GRAN QUIVIRA: In the latter part of the nineteenth century these ruins became identified with the Quivira of Coronado and other Spanish exploreresl In 1909, the ruins and an area of 160 acres surrounding them were educated as the GRAN QUIVIRA NATIONAL MONUMENT. 19 MI SE of Mountainair. Ango american settlement began in the 1880's with a post office from 1904 to 1909. Mail to Willard. Submitted by: Samuel W McWhorter

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