It is somewhat of a secret. 

“I would say nine out of 10 of my Uber drivers who have pulled in here have said, ‘What is this place?’” said Julie Bean, Head of Menaul School.

She is working to change that. 

“We have this wonderful history that we can fall back on here at Menaul,” Bean said. “But also, it’s our time now to bring the school forward again.” 

Part of the Menaul School story, a Presbyterian-founded independent school, is preserved in a little-known historic research library in the back of the 28-acre campus. 

“I think Menaul School is 127 years old,” Lilian Estrada, the Menaul Historic Library Board Chair, said. “[It] functions as what I consider a family bond.” 

Estrada heads up a team of volunteers, and Menaul School alumni, working to raise funds for the Menaul Historical Library of the Southwest to move into a new space on campus. It’s a research library, open to the public, that has served as a repository for historical artifacts from related Presbyterian entities for 50 years.

They boast a collection of over 8,000 artifacts. However, the impact this group has played an outsized, but lesser-known role in shaping Albuquerque. 

“Why does it feel like people aren’t really aware of Menaul School, to the degree we feel they should?” Chris Ferrara, Assistant Head of Menaul School said. “We’ve been this central institution in the state.” 

Ferrara said their own research shows only 15% of people in Albuquerque are even aware Menaul School is a school at all. Despite the substantial role it’s played shaping our state. 

“The first education system in New Mexico was Menaul School,” Ferrara said. “The Presbyterian Church went to every little town throughout the state of New Mexico, and they set up these one-room schoolhouses called, Plaza Schools, and they were staffed by missionaries.” 

Ferrara said the primary goal was not to convert the largely Catholic New Mexican population, as the Protestant Presbyterians moved west in the 1800s. Rather, he said the goal, was to bring, “hygiene, and education, reading and writing, basic mathematics, [and] farming techniques,” to some of the most rural parts of the western frontier. 

“There are a lot of firsts from Menaul School,” Ferrara said of the school’s alumni. Including, a lot of the first Hispanic, or Native American PhDs at a lot of colleges throughout America. 

The influence extends to the gridiron, if one urban myth is to be believed. 

“We used to play UNM, which is a college here, they didn’t have a lot of kids, we didn’t have a lot of kids, so we grew up playing against each other in football,” Joey Gutierrez, Menaul School Foundation Director said. “Our [Menaul School’s] first undefeated season, we beat UNM, which is great. That’s why we share the same colors, is because we shared uniforms.” 

Gutierrez said Menaul School is responsible for University of New Mexico’s and Albuquerque Academy’s school colors. 

(UNM has a different version of its cherry and silver origin story.) 

He also said the road, Menaul Boulevard, was named after the school, not the other way around. 

These stories, and others, will soon be on display for the public inside of Allison Hall, where the current Historic Menaul Library is under construction. 

“So we tell people all the time, ‘Come see your library,'” Estrada said.