The site of Paraje was originally an area known to the first Spanish colonists of New Mexico as Paraje de Fray Cristóbal. It was a paraje, an unpopulated stopping place along the old Camino Real de Tierra Adentro from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It was the first watering and grazing place along the Rio Grande available, after the crossing of the Jornada del Muerto from the south or the last such stop before entering it from the north. Travelers passed through the north northwest/south southeast trending Lava Gate between the difficult terrain of the Jornada del Muerto Volcano malpaís (lava field) to the northeast of it and the foothills of the mountain range to the southwest which funneled travelers to the paraje on the Rio Grande. The paraje and the mountains to the south were named after a priest, Fray Cristóbal de Salazar, a cousin of Juan de Oñate, with the first colonizing expedition in 1598.: