Hernandez is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States. Hernandez is approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) northwest of Española on highway US 84 / US 285.
Within the unincorporated community is the built-up CDP of Hernandez, with an area of 1.7 square miles (4.4 km2).[2] The Hernandez CDP had a population of 946 in the 2010 census,[3]
The entire Hernandez area (55 square miles (140 km2)) has the ZIP code 87537,[4] pointing to ZIP Code Tabulation Area 87537 (ZCTA), with a population of 2,957 in the 2010 U.S. census.[5]
The racial makeup of the Hernandez ZCTA was 58.4% White, 0.4% African American, 2.6% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 35.3% from other races, and 2.9% from two or more races.[6] Hispanic or Latino of any race were 88.9% of the population.[6]
It is in Española Public Schools.[7] Hernandez has one elementary school, Hernandez Elementary. The comprehensive public high school is Española Valley High School.
Hernandez became well known as the site of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, a black and white photograph taken by Ansel Adams, late in the afternoon on November 1, 1941,[8] from a shoulder of highway US 84 / US 285.[9] The fame of Hernandez grew when an escalation in the market value of photographic works was launched in 1971, when a 1948 print of this image of Hernandez sold at auction "for the then-unheard-of price of $71,500" ($537,900 today), with that same copy selling in 2006 for $609,600 ($921,300 today) at a Sotheby's New York auction.[10]
In 1931, Georgia O'Keeffe visited the community and completed her painting Another Church, Hernandez, New Mexico, showing the front and partial interior of an adobe church in the community.[11]