Cerrillos Hills State Park, about 16 miles south of Santa Fe above Los Cerrillos, preserves low hills long shaped by human use. Spanish settlers called them the Sierra de San Mateo and identified lead-silver deposits there in 1581, though Pueblo peoples had already used local minerals in pottery glazes. The area’s mining importance was formalized with the creation of the Cerrillos Mining District in 1879, later recognized on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties in 1973. Established by Santa Fe County in 2003 and transferred to state ownership in 2009, the park combines a hiking trail network with a landscape marked by centuries of Indigenous use, mineral exploration, and mining.