This month, we celebrate the construction of a traditional horno at Rio Fernando Park.

The Cultural Story of the Horno

The word horno, Spanish for “oven,” traces its origins to North Africa where beehive-shaped earthen ovens were brought to Spain by the Moors. Over centuries, the Spanish made hornos an essential part of daily life and when Spanish settlers arrived in New Mexico in the 16th century, they introduced hornos alongside wheat and bread-baking traditions, reshaping Indigenous cooking. 

Pueblo communities began cultivating wheat and adapted their baking methods, moving from traditional pit ovens to building above-ground hornos. Pueblo people soon refined the horno, making it central to feast days and communal celebrations. Baking bread in a horno is still a shared, all-day event where fires are built early, loaves are prepared, and the radiant heat yields crusty, fragrant bread.

Today, Hispanic and Pueblo families continue to uphold this tradition, passing down recipes and skills through generations. The horno remains across New Mexico symbolic of our unique blended heritage and shared history.

Building Our New Horno

This summer’s horno at Rio Fernando Park is the result of collaboration between Taos Land Trust; Futuros Ancestral, a design studio reviving earth-based building; and TiLT, who provided and helped to install their repurposed plastic Redi-Walls made of a total of 12,000 lbs of waste plastic diverted from the landfill. Our Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) learned and led every step, making adobe bricks, constructing the oven, and then celebrating with a traditional foods workshop, firing up the horno and steaming corn. 

Co-director of Futuros Ancestral, Layne Jackson, said about the project:

With everyone’s hands covered in mud, co-directors and adoberos Daniel Barela and Kevin Tsosie (Diné) shared stories with the youth about building their own adobe homes, workshops, art studios, and hornos. Barela sees earthen architecture as central to the resourcefulness and sustainability of the Taos Valley. Says Tsosie, “You can work with the mud, you can work with Mother Earth.”

Funding for this project was made possible by the New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division’s Trails+ Grant, supporting both the horno and Redi-Walls and the LOR Foundation, funding benches built from locally harvested Russian olive wood.

At Taos Land Trust, we envision the horno as an engaging site for community workshops. Those interested in hosting a workshop are encouraged to reach out. Stay tuned for a community firing and traditional foods workshop from our fall harvest in October with Futuros Ancestrals. If you are interested in traditional earth-building, check out information on the Adobe Work Party below.

Celebrating Our Youth Conservation Corps

Also of note, our Youth Conservation Corps summer crew has officially headed back to school. Their energy and commitment continue to shape a more sustainable Taos. Over the course of their two months with us they accomplished so much, such as: 

• Built a fence around our educational gardens
• Constructed 8 Johnson-Su Bioreactors
• Mapped and cleared trails in Rio Hondo Fishing Park
• Managed garden pests and weeds
• Controlled invasive species at Rio Fernando Park
• Achieved Wilderness First Aid certification
• Practiced pruning/orchard care and collected environmental data
• And more!

At the end of this month, we’ll launch new work-based learning programs with local students, starting with the rebranded CEO Fridays (formally Flex Fridays) at Taos High, where up to 12 students will gain hands-on experience in regenerative agriculture, construction, and forestry. Additional programs for middle and high schoolers will begin this fall, with details to come once funding is confirmed. Anyone interested in learning more can contact wicks@taoslandtrust.org.

Thank You for Your Support

Our programs, workshops, and conservation efforts are made possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters. If you value the preservation of Taos’s cultural traditions, the stewardship of our lands, and hands-on education for our youth, please consider making a donation to Taos Land Trust. Your contribution of any size helps us continue building community, protecting land, and passing on skills and traditions to the next generation.

The Taos Land Trust Team