The structure known as the "Juan Tabo Cabin" on old maps. Photo by Jim Schnur.
A drive along Tramway Road (New Mexico State Road 556) at the southeastern corner of the Sandia Pueblo offers access to Forest Service Road 333 in Cibola National Forest's Sandia Ranger District. After continuing for a little more than a half-mile on this road, one may park in a small, unpaved lot.
Approaching the Forest Service road on Tramway Road NE, Sandia Pueblo. Photo by Jim Schnur.
Forest Service Road 333 along the ridge of the Sandias. Photo by Jim Schnur.
Less than 600 feet to the east of this lot, at approximately 6280 feet above sea level, the remains of an old cabin, rock fence, and simple stairs sit along a relatively level area of the Sandia Mountains. Built with granite boulders and other local stones, this structure from an earlier era offers a glimpse of a difficult period in the past.
This 1954 topographic map refers to the structure as "Juan Tabo Cabin." Courtesy of United States Geological Survey.
Some old topographic maps printed by the United States Geological Survey refer to this roofless relic as the "Juan Tabo Cabin." Within Albuquerque, located to the southwest of this plateau, the name "Juan Tabo" appears on a major north-south boulevard, as well as many businesses and a branch of the public library.
Albuquerque's Juan Tabo Public Library on Juan Tabo Boulevard NE. Courtesy of Google Maps.
A Well-Traveled Man?
The Juan Tabo exit on Interstate 40, Albuquerque. Photo by Jim Schnur.
In addition to his roots on Albuquerque's east side, Juan Tabo has received recognition elsewhere. In southeastern Tucson, Arizona, a road named East Paseo Juan Tabo crosses a subdivision approximately 15 miles west of the base of Saguaro National Park's Rincon Peak.
Tucson's Paseo Juan Tabo. Courtesy of Google Maps.
Those living in northeastern Scottsdale, Arizona, may travel along East Juan Tabo Road. In Texas, the San Antonio suburb of Sonoma Ranch has a Juan Tabo Way. Who was this well-traveled man, whose name is enshrined in Texas and the Southwest?
Juan Tabo Road in Scottsdale, Arizona. Courtesy of Google Maps.
A Legendary Man?
Approaching the cabin. Seeking answers. Photo by Jim Schnur.
Locals and long-time residents share their stories of a man they never met. Some portray him as a simple sheep herder who lived along the mountain pastures, while others described how he shepherded his flock in pastorial fashion as a Catholic priest.
Did Juan Tabo once gather his sheep near this spot on the Sandias? Photo by Jim Schnur.
Perhaps related to the nearby Pueblo people, Tabo may also have hailed ancestrally from the indigenous Toboso people who lived southeast of Nuevo México in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.
Did Juan Tabo's flock once gather here for spiritual guidance? Photo by Jim Schnur.
The Toboso people originally settled along portions of the Conchos River (Río Conchos), the largest tributary river of the Río Grande. Some later moved into present-day Texas.
Did Juan Tabo help Spanish Conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado navigate a prickly situation during his expedition in 1540 or 1541? Photo by Jim Schnur.
One of the tributaries of the Conchos River is the San Pedro River, and there is a San Pedro Drive 3.5 miles to the west of Juan Tabo Boulevard that runs parallel to it. Did Juan Tabo, a Toboso, live near the San Pedro River, cross the Rio Grande into Texas, get a few sheep, and set up shop on the western Sandia slope?
So many questions to answer within these walls. Photo by Jim Schnur.
A Man of Legends?
Others tell a different story. Noting that "Tabo" is not a common Spanish surname, some have claimed that Juan Tabo may have originated from a former Spanish (and American) colony, the Philippines. In this scenario, Juan Tabò sought a clean start in a new place, still possibly herding sheep.
As local leads run dry, could the source of Tabo flow from the Philippines? Photo by Jim Schnur.
In the Tagalog language of the Philippines, "tabò" refers to a water dipper used for bathing and cleansing. An interesting possibility, but the high desert of New Mexico does not seem like a tempting destination for trendsetter from a humid archipelago ... that is, before the arrival of Netflix in Mesa del Sol.
Others assert that the roots remain with the Tobosos of Texas. Local media outlets occasionally ponder this dilemma and seek answers, as KRQE-Channel 13 did on April Fool's Day in 2019.
A tee-shirt shown on Albququerque TV in 2019. Screenshot from KRQE YouTube Video.
Maybe there's something to the Toboso tradition not yet discovered, something that involves a place with a name similar to another river in Chihuahua that flows into the Conchos River before reaching the Rio Grande: the Río Florido.
Could a little Florida history shine some light on the origins of Juan Tabo? Photo by Jim Schnur.
Pirating a Legend?
According to a legend popular on Florida's West Coast, a Spanish navigator named José Gaspar was born in 1756. In this tale, Gaspar went from being a highly regarded naval officer to turning against the crown in 1783, seizing a ship, becaming a pirate, renaming himself "Gasparilla," and conducting raids from his outpost in southwest Florida.
For nearly four decades, Gaspar allegedly captured ships and accumulated wealth at his remote subtropical paradise on Gasparilla Island, in Charlotte Harbor. Nearby Captiva Island became the location where he supposedly held women captive for ransom.
In 1821, as he reached the age of sixty-five, Gaspar decided to retire. Since retirement communities didn't yet exist in the Florida Territory the United States had just acquired from Spain under the terms of the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, he may have sought a senior living facility somewhere in South America.
Images of José Gaspar, a legendary pirate on Florida's Gulf Coast. Courtesy, USF Digital Collections.
The story of José Gaspar became popular among snowbirds who heard about it while spending the winter at Charlotte Harbor at the turn of the twentieth century.
A Gasparilla celebration in Tampa a century ago. Courtesy of Florida Memory.
By 1904, the legend of Gasparilla moved up the coastline to Tampa Bay, when Tampa's movers and shakers started the nearly annual tradition of wearing pirate costumes to honor Gaspar, invading the city on a galleon, and demanding the city's surrender by the mayor.
Pirates and party animals at Gasparilla more than 50 years ago. Courtesy of Florida Memory.
Complete with a parade and beads to throw at the crowds, the King and Queen of Gasparilla, along with their merry pirate pals in “Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla," have conquered Tampa, partied, and celebrated for more than a century.
Postcard memories of a pirate invasion. Courtesy of Florida Memory.
A historian first mentioned Gasparilla in a book published in 1936. That same year, a Tampa newspaper editor and longtime Gasparilla participant wrote a history of Gasparilla and Ye Mystic Krewe. Around the same time, participants in the New Deal's Federal Writers' Project collected historical vignettes about Gaspar.
Even Colonel Harland Sanders made a "finger lickin' good" appearance at Tampa's Gasparilla parade in 1969. Courtesy of Florida Memory.
For decades, children in Tampa's public schools enjoyed an annual school holiday to watch Gasparilla and catch beads. Long before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took the field, these kids even had authentic historical publications about their favorite pirate if they wanted to write a book report about Gasparilla.
The biography of a pirate that never existed. Courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library.
Except that José Gaspar never existed! Business leaders dressed up to mimic a pirate that never sailed along Florida's Gulf Coast. A fictional pirate became a historical reality because Tampa's strait-laced Anglo community needed a Spanish swashbuckler as an excuse to party during the height of snowbird season!
The State Archives of Florida even gave a fake pirate a real year of birth and death!
If an absolute lack of historical records and thorough research have disproven the existence of Florida's José Gaspar, is there any hope for New Mexico's Juan Tabo?
Solving the Mystery for History
Heading back to Juan Tabo. Photo by Jim Schnur.
To continue our detective work on Juan Tabo, we should consult local experts. The Albuquerque Historical Society has gathered information about notable pioneers. This organization can tell you that Candelaria Road honors one of the original families to come to Albuquerque in the early 1700s.
Menaul Boulevard recognizes the legacy of James A. Menaul, an Irish native who arrived in 1881 and organized the Presbyterian Church. Fifty years ago, the Menaul Historical Library of the Southwest began to document the Presbyterian Church's history in this part of the country.
On Juan Tabo north of Lomas. We'll be at Menaul and Candelaria very soon! Photo by Jim Schnur.
Both Candelaria and Menaul intersect with Juan Tabo, so do their records cross paths at the historical society? According to the Albuquerque Historical Society's webpage, "nobody seems to know who Juan Tabo was."
An Answer, with Many Questions
Hard as it may be to believe, we have better documentation about Juan Tabo gathering places than the fictional Florida pirate.
In 1914, two years after statehood, Ralph Emerson Twitchell published the first volume of "The Spanish Archives of New Mexico." This important source outlines important records from the Spanish and Mexican colonial eras.
A colonial document to determine the boundaries of the Sandia Pueblo may offer a clue. Photo by Jim Schnur.
The book describes an April 1748 document in which a friar petitioned the colonial governor, Joaquín Codallos y Rabal, to re-establish the Sandia Pueblo. The source called for the use of stones to designate the reservation's boundaries.
New Mexico's Spanish archives, in plain English, with uncertainty. Courtesy, Internet Archive.
One boundary existed "opposite the mouth of the Cañada de Juan Taboso, and on the east the main mountain range called Sandia." In this case, "Cañada" is not the name of the country, but the Spanish word for a glen, or narrow canyon valley often used by drovers, those who move sheep.
The 2023 topographic map names the trail, but not the cabin. Courtesy of United States Geological Survey.
In 1748, a valley was known named after "Juan Taboso." Was it Juan, of the Toboso tribe? Did he have sheep? We may never know.
What We Do Know
Unlike the fictional history that the Federal Writers' Project created for Gaspar in Florida, another New Deal agency left a solid and enduring legecy in New Mexico. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) performed a variety of public works projects throughout the United States during the Great Depression.
The efforts of CCC workers from the mid-1930s until 1942 helped to create the New Mexico State Park system. Today, these parks are managed by the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.
A view of Albuquerque from the cabin where Juan Tabo never lived. Photo by Jim Schnur.
CCC labor also improved recreational access on federal lands, including areas within the Cibola National Forest on the Sandia Mountains. The so-called Juan Tabo Cabin actually dates to the mid-1930s. Never the home to anyone named Juan Tabo, it became one of the structures at the encampment where the CCC workers lived.
A Juan Tabo picnic area with a covered rock structure is approximately 1.4 miles away from the roofless cabin building. Although the access road was closed during my last visit, the views were quite impressive.
Another rock structure for picnics named in honor of the mysterious Juan Tabo. Photo by Jim Schnur.
Earlier in this post, the cabin was said to represent a difficult period in the past. This era had nothing to do with anyone named Juan Tabo, whether or not such a person ever existed. Instead, these structures available for access and enjoyment today recall a time 90 years ago when Americans suffered through the Great Depression.
Despite the challenges they faced, the young men who developed these recreation sites in the mid-1930s left a beautiful legacy for us to enjoy today. I may have failed in my efforts to find the real Juan Tabo, but I left this experience with a deep appreciation for the local beauty surrounding me.
Sunset brings another enlightening adventure to an end. Photo by Jim Schnur.
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