The Cerrillos Hills embody the tri-cultural story of New Mexico, where Indians, the Spanish, and Anglos each altered the landscape in pursuit of turquoise, lead, silver, and other resources. Indians mined nearby turquoise deposits since at least A.D. 900, and most turquoise found at area archaeological sites, as well as some from Chaco Canyon, probably came from these hills. For almost 400 years beginning in the early 1300s, people from large pueblos such as San Marcos came here for galena, a lead ore used for the distinctive black glaze decoration on pottery, and Cerrillos galena became the preferred glaze source for potters throughout the Rio Grande Valley. The Spanish also valued galena, chiefly for its silver content, and their first reference to the Cerrillos Hills came from the Entrada of 1581, when two miner-soldiers claimed to have discovered 11 silver veins here. Despite stories of rich cities of gold in El Norte and of silver, the early Spaniards found no evidence in the pueblos that either metal was being mined. The oldest well-documented mine claim in New Mexico is the 1709 claim for the nearby Santa Rosa galena-silver mine, since older records were destroyed in the uprising of 1680. Most of the 4,000 holes, pits, and shafts visible in the hills today date from the mining boom of 1879-1884, when Anglos from the western territories, speculators from the East, and recent European immigrants flocked here hoping for riches to rival the California and Colorado gold strikes. In 1998, Santa Fe County voters approved a bond that funded the purchase of these 1116 acres; the deepest mine shafts were secured by the New Mexico State Abandoned Mine Land Bureau, the Santa Fe County Cerrillos Hills Historic Park opened in 2003, and in 2009 the park joined the New Mexico State Park system.