Taos New Mexico

Called the Holy Mecca by the Koshare Indian Dancers, Taos is a city in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico. Throughout the entire Koshare history, the Koshares have traveled to Taos each year meeting artists, sculptures, and Native Americans that have helped shape the organization. In 1936, the Koshares made one of their first trips to Taos and met with Taos artist Bert Geer Phillips in his studio. From this trip and others, year after year, the Koshares built life-time relationships with several well-known Taos artists.

Beginning in 1899, artists began to settle in Taos and created the "Taos Society of Artists". In time the Taos art colony developed. Many paintings were made of local scenes, especially of Taos Pueblo and activities there. Many of the artists used Native Americans from the pueblo as models in often fanciful paintings. Some of the artists' studios have been preserved and may be viewed by visitors to Taos. These include the Blumenschein House. Influential Taos artists include Bill Rane, R. C. Gorman and Nicolai Fechin.

Other tourist attractions are the homes of Kit Carson and Mabel Dodge Luhan, along with the Rio Grande Gorge and Taos Ski Valley. Twenty miles northwest is the D. H. Lawrence Ranch, (originally known as the Kiowa Ranch and now owned by the University of New Mexico), the home of the English novelist, D. H. Lawrence in the 1920s. By all accounts he loved the ranch high up in the mountains, the only property he ever owned. It is believed that his ashes are buried there at the D. H. Lawrence Memorial. Another novelist who lived for a while in Taos was Alexander Trocchi. Just outside of Taos in Ranchitos is the Martinez Hacienda, the home turned museum of the late Padre Antonio José Martínez.

Taos Plaza is, for historical reasons, one of the few places in the country where the flag may properly be displayed continuously (both day and night).

Taos is now one of the major tourist attractions in the Southwest. With its world-class skiing and dining, and the San Francisco de Asis Church, located just to the south of the town in Rancho de Taos, it is a major destination.

Taos was established following the Spanish conquest of the Pueblo villages.

During the 1770s Taos was repeatedly raided by Comanches who at that time lived in the plains of what is now eastern Colorado. Juan Bautista de Anza, governor of the Province of New Mexico, led a successful punitive expedition in 1779 against the Comanches.

After the U.S. takeover of New Mexico in 1847, Hispanics and Amerindians in Taos staged a mini-rebellion, known as the Taos Revolt, in which the newly appointed U.S. Governor, Charles Bent, was lynched.