Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now sweeps across more than 500 years of history—from the state’s earliest inhabitants to the residents of today. Stories are told through artifacts, videos, photographs, computer interactives, and oral histories that underscore the state’s cultural diversity and provide context for the museum’s ever-changing array of temporary exhibitions. Together, these stories breathe life into the people who made the American West: Native Americans, Spanish colonists, Mexican citizens, Santa Fe Trail riders, fur trappers, outlaws, Buffalo Soldiers, railroad workers, miners, scientists, hippies, artists, and photographers.

Highlights of the exhibition include Native American pottery, baskets, and jewelry from pre-European contact; a halberd from about 1600 used by Spanish conquistadores in their conquest of Indigenous peoples; an  illustrated map of New Mexico from 1758 by the cartographer Bernardo Miera y Pacheco; a stagecoach, portraits, and personal possessions of settlers who traveled the Santa Fe Trail; and the death mask of Francisco “Pancho” Villa (1878–1923), the Mexican general who led a raid on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916.