Which came first? The city or the county of Bernalillo?

Editor’s note: The Journal continues “What’s in a Name?,” a once a month column in which Elaine D. Briseño will give a short history of how places in New Mexico got their names.

Some might wonder why the town of Bernalillo does not sit within the county that shares its name.

Once upon a time, it did.

In fact, it is the county that took its name from the city. Not the other way around. The town of Bernalillo is now significantly smaller than Albuquerque, but at one time it was the epicenter of economic trade and activity in the region. Its influence was profound enough that it would eventually win the tug-of-war with Albuquerque to hold the county seat.

To understand the communities’ winding paths to and away from each other, one must go back to the beginning. Back to the arrival of Spanish explorers to this part of the country. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition arrived in 1540 in the search for the mythological Seven Cities of Gold. They spent their first winter near the current site of the town of Bernalillo, according to historians.

Of course, they weren’t the first inhabitants. The region was most likely the heart of the Southern Tiwa province, which had a dozen or so major villages.

Spaniards did not establish their own community. That would not come for more than a century.

The community of Bernalillo began as a string of haciendas along the river in the 1600s. It was officially founded by Don Diego de Vargas in 1695 and by the 1800s became a commercial center of trade among the pueblos and Mexican settlers, according to the town website. The name Bernalillo was found in records dating back to the 1600s describing nearby settlements.

But why the name Bernalillo? Some believe it can be traced back to a prominent New Mexico family.

Among the Spanish colonizers to establish an estate in Bernalillo was a family carrying the last name of Bernal. No official records exist on the naming, but historians have speculated it is from this family the town’s name originates. The Bernals were part of the sprawling Bernal-Griegos clan, which was one of the three most prominent families in 17th century New Mexico, according to historian José Antonio Esquibel.

Pascuala Bernal, an Indian woman who had integrated into Spanish society, came to New Mexico in the late 1590s with her husband, Juan Griego, who was a soldier in Juan de Oñate’s army. The two had met and married in Mexico and produced seven children. Some took the last name of their father, while others held on to the Bernal surname.

It would be two centuries before the county of the same name would come into existence.

An article in the Nov. 25, 1846, Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express announced the formation of seven counties, or partidos, within what was then called the Department of New Mexico. The region was still a territory of Mexico at that time and divided into three districts — the central, northern and southeastern districts. The latter district was carved up to form Bernalillo and Valencia counties.

Bernalillo County had only 8,204 “inhabitants” and included the communities of “Yselta, Padilla, Pajarito, Ranchos de Atrisco, Atrisco, Placerro, Alberquerque, Sameda, Corrales, Sandia and Bernalillo,” according to the 1846 article. By this time, Bernalillo was a prosperous, bustling economic center.

Initially, the county seat was in the town of Bernalillo, but that would soon change.

The United States acquired New Mexico in 1848 as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War. The Territorial Legislature redrew the previous Mexican-established boundaries in 1852, creating nine counties and shifting the county seat to Ranchos de Albuquerque. It would move even further south into Albuquerque, which was quickly surpassing Bernalillo in population and economic opportunities.

In an attempt to win back the county seat, Bernalillo residents in 1875 pushed for the annexation of Santa Ana County to make the town closer to Bernalillo County’s geographic center. Santa Ana, which was one of the seven partidos created by the Mexican government, was absorbed by Bernalillo County in 1876. However, the legislature rejected the residents’ request to relocate the county seat to Bernalillo but agreed to hold a referendum on the matter in 1878.

Bernalillo won.

A story in the April 19, 1878, Weekly Arizona Miner said the seat “has been removed from Alberquerque, its old home, to the flourishing Town of Bernalillo” with 1,406 voting for the shift and 487 voting against it. The decision was challenged in court but the judge eventually affirmed “the voice of the people.”

A blurb in the April 6, 1878, Mesilla Valley Independent provided a glimpse into the political sparring of the time.

“The question which agitates them (the citizens of Bernalillo County) is the removal of the county seat,” the article said. “Meetings have been held, speeches made and money spent. For some reason not clearly discernible, the people of the Town of Bernalillo wished to remove the county seat from Albuquerque to their town …”

The article casts doubt on Bernalillo’s importance by mentioning its “but one important highway communicating with the outside world.” What it did have, according to the article, was “the wealthiest men in the territory and as they determined to remove the county seat they simply did so.”

It goes on to complain about the expense of erecting new public buildings and whether those who wanted the change would foot the bill. Safe to say, public debate over how taxpayer money should be spent has not changed much over the centuries.

The heated tug-of-war over the county seat was permanently extinguished in 1903 when the legislature created Sandoval County, forever divorcing the town and the county bearing its name. Corrales earned the county seat, but two years later that honor was bestowed on Bernalillo, according to a May 8, 1905, article in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

By 1880, Bernalillo’s population was 1,223 people as compared to Albuquerque’s 2,315, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those populations were estimated by the bureau at 9,114 and 560,274 respectively in 2023.

Which came first? The city or the county of Bernalillo?

While the city of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County have become the state’s most populous center, that does not diminish the importance and contribution of the Town of Bernalillo. It still sits along a major travel route. Those traveling along Interstate 25 or U.S. 550 into Rio Rancho, the state’s third-largest city, must pass either through or by the town. It’s also near seven neighboring pueblos, creating a unique blend of Spanish and Native American cultures that influence the town to this day.