During the nineteenth century, before public schools existed in the Manito region of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, many children were educated in Presbyterian elementary schools in communities including Dixon, Rancho de Taos, Chimayo, and Truchas. From there they could continue their educations at boarding school. Originally established as an Indian School in 1896 Menaul became a school for Spanish-speaking boys. It became co-educational in 1934. In 1959 Menaul merged with Allison-James, the Presbyterian school for girls that operated in Santa Fe from 1866-1959. Today, things have come a long way since the early days when tuition payments often came in the form of bartered farm produce or livestock.
The Menaul Historical Library of the Southwest was founded in 1974 after a trove of historical documents and records was found in an old vault in the basement of the Donaldson Hall administrative building. Its shelves and file cabinets overflow with over 8,000 donated and meticulously catalogued items, many relevant to Manito communities. Neatly organized by a small corps of dedicated volunteers, sections include documents, records, books, periodicals, letters, memoirs, photographs, oral histories recorded on cassettes along with transcriptions and translations, maps, and artifacts. The section dedicated to the history of the Menaul School includes yearbooks that date back to the early days, when they were handwritten. Alumni files are maintained in an old-fashioned library card catalog.
