The Santa Fe Railroad was developing a hotel-based tourist trade and began to offer luxury accommodations with an enticing theme of the West. Although the railroad used California Mission style, native American roots were also mined to tempt visitors. The railroad opened the El Navajo hotel and station in Gallup. The fabulous Alvarado in Albuquerque combined a hotel, railway station, and curio Indian crafts building. Mary Colter’s innovative native American themes infused parts of both of these buildings.

In Albuquerque, the University of New Mexico, was the first civic use of Pueblo style appearing under the leadership of university president William Tight. Estufa, a fraternal meeting building was constructed in the style of an Indian kiva. The university remodeled the Romanesque style Hodgin Hall to the Spanish Pueblo Revival.

While Albuquerque found itself as a growing city and railroad center, Santa Fe found itself too far from the main line and its economy began to wither. In 1912 the planning board, with an eye to restoring the city’s economy through tourism, defined the architectural styles that would be used to reconstruct the city’s historic appearance.

Shortly thereafter, one of New Mexico’s defining architects, John Gaw Meem began his career. Meem came to Santa Fe in the 1920s for treatment of tuberculosis, fell in love with the city and the state, and stayed, reinterpreting Spanish and native American architectural traditions. In addition to the La Fonda hotel in downtown Santa Fe, Meem went to the University of New Mexico designing over 30 major buildings. In 1957 he led a committee that drafted the Historical Zoning Ordinance, which mandated the use of either Pueblo Style or Territorial Style on all new buildings in central Santa Fe. A mix of Spanish, Pueblo, and Territorial it came to be called Santa Fe style.

This decision has not been without controversy. Meem believed that architects could express the form elements in a way that could be consistent with existing architecture without being strictly imitative. In an interview conducted in 1964 Meems notes: “... in those early days, when we first started, the effort was to make these buildings as closely imitative as possible of the prototypes.” But soon that changed. “I became very conscious of the fact that there was a possibility of expressing these forms in a way that wasn't completely imitative yet would suggest the architecture and would blend in with our architecture rather than be exactly like it.”

Others felt that the Historical Zoning Ordinance limited the possibilities of architectural expression. Still others argued that the ordinance covers only a portion of the city – the historical area, leaving room for new designs.

Albuquerque, meanwhile, pursued a different tactic, welcoming business and development. Although Old Town has been preserved, the cost has been the loss of many historic buildings, of all styles. But the openness of the city to innovation and design also fostered a sense of architecture as an art form. And watching the loss of its architectural history has resulted in the remaining buildings being better protected.