Land Office deal to return sacred sites to Cochiti Pueblo
In a three-party deal announced Thursday, the old Dixon’s Apple Orchard and 8,800 acres of state trust land next to it will be traded by the State Land Office to Cochiti Pueblo. The Land Office will obtain the two-acre Garrett’s Desert Inn site in downtown Santa Fe, which also includes the popular Santa Fe Bite restaurant. The hotel/restaurant property is across the street from the Land Office’s headquarters building on Old Santa Fe Trail.
The property being traded to the pueblo has sacred and ancestral village sites and hunting areas that Cochiti has been seeking for decades. “This land exchange is of enormous importance to the people of the Cochiti Pueblo. I am pleased to play a part in the return of their ancestral land, while at the same time acquiring an income-producing property for the beneficiaries of the (state land) trust. We know the land will be protected and wellmanaged under their care,” said State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn.
In the swap, the Catron family of Santa Fe is selling the Garrett’s site at 311 Old Santa Fe Trail to Cochiti under a contract that was finalized recently. The pueblo will then trade the site for about 9,000 acres of state trust land that includes the Dixon’s orchard. The apple farm, located in a scenic canyon, was formerly a favorite day-trip destination for local residents when the fall crop came in, but it was ruined by wildfire and floods in 2011.
Dunn said the state land trust, which benefits schools, universities, prisons and other public entities, will make eight times more from the downtown Santa Fe site than it’s been getting from the old apple orchard land and adjacent acreage. Cochiti has been paying $30,000 rent for the land, which is adjacent to the pueblo, under a 2014 deal, Land Office spokeswoman Emily Strickler said later.
What will happen to the Garrett’s property is undetermined. Strickler said there are no specific plans for the site now and that using it to expand the Land Office’s own office space is “not something we’re interested in.” Santa Fe Bite owner John Eckre said he doesn’t know what will happen to his business, famous locally and around the country for its greenchile cheeseburgers. “That is such a good question,” he said. “I wish I knew.”