New Mexico History Museum

he New Mexico History Museum (http://www.nmhistorymuseum.org) aims to engage visitors in the craft of history. Within a theatrical environment, this newest museum in New Mexico, which opened May 24, 2009, offers the powerful stories of the many cultures that have called the Land of Enchantment home. Sometimes those cultures blended. Sometimes they clashed. Always, they added new stitches to a tapestry of life that’s among the oldest in the nation.

The museum includes interactive multimedia displays, hands-on exhibits, and vivid stories of real New Mexicans. As a 96,000-square-foot extension of the Palace of the Governors – itself a story of New Mexico’s past and present in a 400-year-old building – the New Mexico History Museum anchors itself in the historic Santa Fe Plaza.

With stories from and about New Mexicans like PoPay, Juan de Oñate, Kit Carson, Billy the Kid, Adolph Bandelier, Ernest Blumenschein, Robert Oppenheimer, and the ’60s-era counterculture, the New Mexico History Museum sweeps through centuries of human interaction. The second-floor Albert and Ethel Herzstein Gallery offers changing exhibits.

The Palace focuses on the history that its walls have seen over the centuries, and includes a chance for visitors to interact with Native American artisans, who display and sell their wares under its Portal, continuing a centuries-long tradition. Other parts of the museum campus include the Print Shop and Bindery, a working exhibit of antique printing presses, and the renowned Fray Angélico Chávez History Library and Photographic Archives, which are open during the week for research purposes.