The East Mountain Historical Society hopes to one day conduct operations out of a stone house that was built more than 100 years ago in the unincorporated community of San Antonio, located between Tijeras and Cedar Crest.
“It’ll be a repository for the area’s history, and through utilization of the meeting rooms, serve as a convenient place for gatherings of all kinds,” Robyn Hoffman, the co-chair of the Stone House Committee, said during an event on June 14.
Hoffman said the historical society also envisions the building serving as a visitor’s center on the south end of the Turquoise Trail.
The group is raising money and hopes to collect $200,000 this year. The total price tag of the project will be an estimated $3.6 million, which includes the money the historical society has already spent. Hoffman said the building renovation itself will likely be $2 million. Other costs include interactive media rooms and special equipment for storing archives.
The $200,000 is hoping to raise this year will allow the historical society to hire a part-time project manager and contract for an architectural plan.
“The property the stone house is located on has a history that dates back hundreds of years,” Jeannie Place, a Stone House Committee member and a geologist, said. “A Pueblo structure occupied by Native Americans as early as the 1300s once existed just to the south of our property.”
The home was donated to the historical society in 2023 after Chuck and Shelley Jackson purchased it. Chuck Jackson’s grandmother was born in the house and he wanted to see it preserved for future generations.
The historical society is referring to the building as the Campo-Sanchez Stone House, referencing two families that once called it home.
Carlos Campo, an Italian immigrant, purchased the land in the 1880s and built the stone house in 1888. Campo became a fixture of the San Antonio community, where he owned a salon and a store. Place said Campo owned a dance hall and tended an orchard and a vineyard.
The Campo store also served as a post office on two different occasions — first in 1907 and then again in 1917.
But the property’s history dates back to before Campo purchased it.
In 1819, the Canon de Carnue Land Grant was created, which included San Antonio. During the 1800s, San Antonio had two plazas and a vibrant community. The perimeter wall of one of those plazas was still likely in place when Campo built the stone house from the Zamora family.
Then, in 1862, during the Civil War, troops set up camp for several weeks in the San Antonio area. One of the soldiers sketched the village in his journal and, based on that sketch, the historical society believes a corral or an enclosure was once located near the arroyo by the stone house.
Campo died in 1924 and his wife passed away in 1929. Upon her death, a pair of newlyweds — Flaviano and Dulcinea Sanchez — purchased the property. The couple were descendants of the original land grant families. They renovated the property and expanded the house in 1933.
The East Mountain Historical Society plans to have additional community meetings to gather input on what the public would like to see at the stone house.
How to donate: To learn more or to contribute to the project, go to eastmountainhistory.org/stone-house-project-home.