Corrales was home to the Tiguex Indians for centuries before Spanish explorers laid claim to the region around 1540. As in other Spanish settlements of the time, soldiers encountered resistance from the Native Americans and spent the next century battling for control of the land. In 1710, the King of Spain issued the Alameda Land Grant, which included the Corrales area, to Francisco Montez Vigil. Vigil, however, failed to fulfill the conditions of the land grant, and on July 18, 1712, the grant was transferred to Spanish Captain Juan Gonzales.

Like the Native Americans before him, Gonzales valued the land as a precious natural resource. A complex irrigation system of acequias (ditches) was channeled from the nearby river to feed crops of sweet potatoes, alfalfa, beans, squash, and corn. Gonzales also built a church, which he named in honor of San Isidro, the patron saint of farmers, to serve as the spiritual hub of the community.

Corrales flourished under San Isidro’s guardianship, as the arid, high-desert setting proved ideal for agriculture and the Spanish settlers came to love their new home. By the 1870 census, approximately 687 people, or about 300 families, lived in the village. Around that time the region’s Hispanic population began to feel the influence of other cultures.

In 1870, the Alary family left the Bordeaux region of France in search of prime grape-growing land in the United States. Because Franciscan priests had successfully grown grapes for sacramental wines for nearly two centuries in the Rio Grande Valley, they settled in Corrales. Soon the valley became known for producing some of the finest wine and brandy in the country. Prohibition eventually soured the grape trade, but local growers made apples into another winning crop that continues to the present day.

The arrival of the Albuquerque railroad in 1880 brought an influx of East Coast Americans seeking adventure. Corrales became a haven for artists, writers and other free spirits. By 1972, when Corrales was officially incorporated as a self-governing village, some 3,000 residents - a distinctive multi cultural mix of people from around the globe - called Corrales home.

Today, the land takes shape in the form of a small rural village called Corrales, the Spanish word for corrals. Situated along a bend of the Rio Grande in central New Mexico, this tranquil farmland now doubles as a trendy bedroom community thirteen miles northwest of Albuquerque and is home to nearly 7,000 residents.