Long before Spanish boots crossed the Rio Grande, the Tewa people and other Pueblo communities inhabited the land where Santa Fe now stands. Archaeological evidence of their presence has been found as close to the modern plaza as the Sena compound, just steps from where tourists browse art galleries today. The area was not empty wilderness awaiting European settlement but a lived-in landscape with deep roots. When Spanish conquistadors established Santa Fe in the early 17th century, they built their presidio atop ground that already carried centuries of human history.

The plaza has changed hands three times. Under Spain, it served as a military and administrative center, a walled compound enclosing residences, barracks, a chapel, a prison, and the Governor's palace. When Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, the Santa Fe Trail opened, connecting Missouri to the plaza's western terminus. Suddenly the square filled with overland wagon caravans, traders camping in the open and unloading goods. After the United States established the New Mexico Territory, the plaza transformed again: a fence went up to keep out wandering animals, trees were planted, pathways laid, and a bandstand erected. New Mexico became the 47th state in 1912, and a historic preservation plan ensured the plaza's architecture would retain its layered identity in Pueblo, Spanish, and Territorial styles.

The Palace of the Governors, built between 1610 and 1612, is the oldest public building in the United States. It has served continuously as a seat of government under Spanish, Pueblo (during the 1680 revolt), Mexican, and American rule. Today it houses a museum, its long adobe portal shading Native American artisans who sell jewelry and pottery along the sidewalk. Nearby stands the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, the Loretto Chapel with its famous spiral staircase, and the New Mexico Museum of Art. The entire plaza district is listed as a National Historic Landmark, a designation recognizing not just individual buildings but the unbroken thread of civic life they represent.

The Santa Fe Plaza is no museum piece frozen behind glass. The Fiestas de Santa Fe, tracing their origins to 1712, fill the square each September. The Santa Fe Indian Market, held every August, draws tens of thousands of visitors and is the largest juried Native American art show in the world. The Spanish Market showcases traditional Hispanic arts. At Christmas, farolitos, small paper lanterns holding votive candles, line the plaza walls and surrounding rooftops, casting a warm amber glow over the adobe. A performing arts stage hosts concerts and community events year-round, and park benches beneath mature trees still serve the same purpose the plaza was built for: a place where people gather.

Not all the plaza's history is comfortable. A Soldiers' Monument once stood at its center, an obelisk commemorating Civil War and frontier conflicts. On October 12, 2020, Indigenous People's Day, protesters toppled the obelisk portion, a reminder that the square's layered history includes colonization, displacement, and ongoing debates about whose stories get told in stone. The act reflected tensions as old as the plaza itself, a place that has always belonged to multiple peoples with competing claims. That contested quality is part of what makes the Santa Fe Plaza more than a tourist attraction. It is a living record of the American Southwest, still being written.