Cerrillos Turquoise: A Field Guide to America's Oldest Mine

Cerrillos turquoise comes from the Cerrillos Hills of Santa Fe County, New Mexico, where indigenous peoples mined the stone for more than a thousand years before Euro-American settlers arrived. It was the benchmark stone of the Great American Turquoise Rush and the preferred source of Pueblo jewelers through the early twentieth century.

Mateo's Field Notes

No single deposit has a longer continuous human story than the mines of Mount Chalchihuitl and Turquoise Hill in the Cerrillos Hills. According to Philip Chambless and Mike Ryan II's research in Turquoise in America, Part One, "NATIVE AMERICANS had been mining turquoise for over a thousand years when settlers first identified it in 1857." William Phipps Blake made that formal identification, but the ground itself held evidence of far older work — hand-cut stone tool pits and gallery workings that pre-date any written record of the Southwest. (CHAMBLESS ~p. 17)

The Chaco Canyon connection is perhaps the most striking data point in Cerrillos's long history. Isotope analysis cited in Chambless linked 13 of 29 artifacts recovered at Pueblo Bonito directly to Cerrillos and the adjacent Jarilla deposits — a prehistoric supply chain running hundreds of miles that predates any commercial turquoise trade by centuries. (CHAMBLESS ~line 10681)

The Euro-American era brought a different kind of appetite. The Arizona Turquoise Company acquired the principal mines, and by the early 1890s, George F. Kunz of Tiffany and Co. had declared American Southwest turquoise "equal if not superior to Persian turquoise" — a statement that touched off the Great American Turquoise Rush. Estimated production at Cerrillos alone reached approximately two million dollars over the rush period, with the mine's ATC-era manager Doty confirming its standing: "I never expected to find as good stone here as we get at Cerrillos." (CHAMBLESS ~line 5600)

The stone's reach into traditional Pueblo craft is documented in Margery Bedinger's Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. A Zuni smith named Keneshde visited Los Cerrillos around 1890, paying five dollars to the owner for access; he became, as Bedinger records, "the first Zuni to get turquoise out of that mine." (BEDINGER ~line 7074) That small transaction is a precise moment: the pre-contact mining tradition intersecting with the emerging silversmith trade, mediated by a fee and a gate.

Collector's Handbook: How to Recognize Cerrillos Turquoise

Color tells: Cerrillos stone was the benchmark of the 1890–1910 rush era; no explicit color range description survives in the corpus texts consulted — the stone's reputation rested on hardness and geological profile rather than a documented single hue. Collectors should rely on provenance documentation rather than visual identification alone.
Matrix tells: The corpus does not provide a distinctive matrix description for Cerrillos. The Chaco-era artifacts show the stone was traded as finished pieces; rush-era production prioritized high-grade non-matrix material for the jewelry market.
Natural vs. treated notes: No stabilization history documented for Cerrillos in the corpus. The stone's historical hardness reputation suggests naturally gem-grade material was the primary commercial product.
Mine status: The principal rush-era mines (ATC / Mount Chalchihuitl) concluded large-scale production in the early twentieth century. Doug Magnus later acquired the old Tiffany-era mines per CHAMBLESS foreword. Current active production, if any, is not confirmed in the corpus sources consulted.
Imitation caution: No Cerrillos-specific imitation documentation in the corpus. General turquoise imitation cautions apply — see the Treatments and Imitations guide.

References

Chambless, Philip, and Mike Ryan II. Turquoise in America, Part One: The Great American Turquoise Rush 1890–1910. Callais Press, 2021. Chapter 2; ~line 10681.
Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. University of New Mexico Press, 1973. ~line 7074.
Lowry, Joe Dan, and Joe P. Lowry. Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone. Gibbs Smith, 2010.

Related Entries

Compare the Cerrillos rush-era record with the concurrent Burro Mountains / Tyrone field guide, where the Elizabeth Pocket competed directly with Cerrillos for the title of best stone in the world. The Kingman field guide covers the Arizona side of the same rush. For stone quality context see the turquoise grading and color guide. For treatment background, see Treatments and Imitations.