About Your Community Association



From the Los Chavez Community Association By-Laws:

Article 2 - Purpose

The purpose of the Association shall be to enhance the community of Los Chavez, Valencia County, State of New Mexico. We shall promote a better neighborhood and community through group action so that the quality of life in Los Chavez shall be in keeping with the social, environmental, cultural, and historic needs and interest of the residents. The activities of the Association shall include, but are not limited to: sponsoring cooperative planning for community development; setting standards for development; promoting beauty, safety, a rural sense of space, and groundwater safety; and fundraising and public education programs as they are deemed necessary.
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Who is the Association?
The Association is you. While there may be a Board of Officers, that Board is not the Association, and the Board by itself cannot affect issues in Los Chavez. What this means is that it takes you, and your neighbor, and those people across the ditch, and those fine folks across the highway collectively to solve problems or to implement things that we as a community decide are important to us.

If there is an important issue that needs attention, it is not enough to just bring it to the attention of the Board and hope it gets solved. When issues are brought to the attention of the Board, the Board attempts to assign a committee to research the issue (see Committees page). If no committee can be formed, i.e., there is no one willing to comit some time, then the issue or great idea will just go away. The Board cannot 'save the community' by itself.

What this current Board has created and improving upon is the infrastructure to communicate across the whole community. This website is an important part of that infrastructure. Meetings are another way to communicate and gain an idea of how the community feels.

 Los Chavez Community Organization
Los Chavez, NM

info@loschavez.org

Meet the Board

President:
David Gabaldon

La Tierras de Juan Gabaldon essentially begins the story of my Los Chavez roots and my continued cultural heritage with Los Chavez. Similar to the sketchy history of the early days of Los Chavez, how the Gabaldon family came to settle in this area is also not complete, made all the more difficult with all of the family members already gone. Certainly, there are many 'Gabaldon' families in the area, but to my knowledge there is not a direct link.

Los Chavez was the location for the birth of my grandparents Juan Gabaldon and Maria Sanchez. They were married in 1908 and had 9 children, with 7 surviving. The house that I am currently living in was built somewhere around the time they were married (all the children were born there). It has since been upgraded and remodeled with modern conveniences such as wood floors, electricity, plumbing, indoor bathrooms, and plastered walls. It's still fun to show visitors the 2 feet thick walls, and let them know there is at least a foot of dirt above their heads underneath the pitched roof.

Over the years additional lands were acquired bringing the total farm acreage to about 44 acres, on 4 different plats (locations) not connected, but generally speaking within a stones throw of each other, all held in a Family Trust. I currently manage about 36 of those acres growing K31 grass. The remainder is leased in alfalfa.

I did not grow up here, but made regular trips down from Albuquerque up until graduation to visit, spend the weekend or the summer with my uncles 'on the farm'. I have chosen this area to live and raise a family since about 1990. It is still a very unique place to live, but unfortunately there are many forces working against the community to turn it into 'like everywhere else'. There is nothing wrong with wanting to have a rural community, and that is among the chief reasons I am involved with the Association.

Vice-President:
Lisa Chavez

Treasurer:
Jacob Armijo

Secretary:


Member at Large:
Joel Alderete

Member at Large:
Adrian Pino

Member at Large:
Mike Peters

History of Los Chavez





There is not a significant amount of information on Los Chavez. Below is what has been found at the City of Belen Library and through the assistance of Margaret Espinosa McDonald. Spellings of Los Chavez are found to be with both an 's' and 'z'.

The community of Los Chavez was founded during the year 1739 by a Land Grant requested by Don Nicolas Duran y Chaves in an petition submitted to then Governor Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza. The petition, which was submitted in 1738, described the land as 'vacant and unsettled'. Nicolas Duran y Chaves was seeking additional land on which to graze livestock. The petition was approved in 1739.

The community of Los Chavez was part of a much larger Land Grant as bounded by:
East: Rio Grande River
North: Lands of Captain Bernbe Baca
West: Rio Puerco
South: Los Esteros de San Pablo (Sausal)

Los Chavez began as a farming community and was a stop for caravans that used the west side (bank) to travel along the Rio Grande. A 1790 census listed 6 different plazas, with a total of 78 households.

The 1839 Militia List of New Mexico contained 19 soldiers bearing arms for Los Chavez. In the autumn of 1847 a unit of the U.S. Army traveled south along the west bank of the Rio Grande. Philip Gooch Ferguson reported that "the road most generally traveled" was on the east bank, but the west side of the river was better for water. Ferguson mentioned camping near the small community named "Plaza Chavez".

The community continued to grow with the main industry being agriculture and livestock. Similar to other communities in the area, water-wheel grinding mills were constructed in Los Chavez. Corn and wheat were the primary food staples at that time. Louis Huning of Los Lunas established one of the largest grinding mills in the area in the NW part of Los Chavez.

The train tracks came through the area (spur from Isleta to Belen) in the 1880's. The grinding mills, which relied on heavy machinery, were delivered on freight trains that came through Los Chavez and Belen.

The story continues... Do you research and write history? We would like to continue this section. Please use the Contact Us page if you are able to assist in finishing this section. Thank you.


Suggested readings:

EL RIO ABAJO by Gilberto Espinosa and Tibo J Chavez.

VALENCIA COUNTY HISTORY THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHERS LENS by Margaret Espinosa McDonald and Richard Melzer.

HEREOS OF THE RIO ABAJO by Richard Melzer.

LONG DISTANCE TRAILS GROUP Santa Fe National Park Service and New Mexico State Office of Bureau of Land Management.

EL CAMINO REAL de TIERRA ADENTRO NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Department of the Interior; 2002.

RECORDS OF HEARINGS BEFORE THE SURVEY GENERAL in PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS in TERRITORY OF NEW MEXICO  Compiled from original records by Gilberto Espinosa, of the Albuquerque Bar Association, Vol. 1, Part 3.

NEW MEXICO PLACE NAMES: A GEOGRAPHIC DICTIONARY
T.M Pearce, University of New Mexico Press, 1965: Albuquerque.