State Grant Brings Free Wi-Fi to Two Sandoval County Historic Sites

A $460,000 Community Connect grant will install free public Wi-Fi at 12 historic sites across New Mexico, including the Coronado Historic Site in Bernalillo and the Jemez Historic Site in Jemez Springs, state officials announced April 7.

The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and the Office of Broadband Access and Expansion, known as OBAE, will jointly implement the project, which funds 213 new Wi-Fi access points distributed across the dozen sites. All installations must be complete by June 30, 2027, giving the agencies a roughly 14-month window to deploy hardware, test connectivity and integrate the service into visitor amenities at each location.

Jeff Lopez, director of OBAE, emphasized the accessibility benefits the project will deliver. DCA Cabinet Secretary Debra Garcia y Griego framed the investment around digital inclusion, education and cultural tourism. Anne McCudden, executive director of New Mexico Historic Sites, pointed to expanded community engagement as a central goal, noting that improved connectivity at historic locations changes what site staff can offer the public.

The Coronado Historic Site sits along the Rio Grande in Bernalillo and chronicles the region's Spanish colonial and Indigenous heritage. The Jemez Historic Site in Jemez Springs preserves a 14th-century Towa pueblo village alongside a 17th-century Spanish mission. Reliable broadband at both locations would enable multimedia interpretive exhibits, web-based tour content and remote-learning programs for school groups, tools that unreliable connectivity has made difficult to sustain.

This is the seventh award issued through the Community Connect Grant Program, which draws from the Connect New Mexico Fund established in 2021. The grant fits within New Mexico's broader commitment of more than $900 million to statewide broadband expansion, extending that investment into cultural facilities that have historically fallen outside traditional infrastructure priorities. Previous Community Connect recipients have included institutions from Las Cruces to Roswell.

Once the June 2027 installation deadline passes, site managers at Coronado and Jemez will turn to the longer-term question of operations and maintenance, the work that determines whether new access points remain functional years after the grant closes.