Santa Fe is a unique city of New Mexico and the Southwest. It is the oldest European settlement west of the Mississippi, founded in 1610 by the Spanish colonists, who made it the capital of Nuevo México, the northernmost province of New Spain.  In 1821 it became part of independent Mexico, and after the Mexican-American War in 1848, it came under the US control. The long years of Spanish-Mexican rule and their interaction with Native Americans in the area resulted in a cultural mixture of Catholic Hispanic and Native elements.  The visual appearance of the city is radically different from most American cities. Most houses follow the by so-called pueblo style: they have one or two floors, a flat roof with beams sticking out, and the walls are made of adobe (vályog), or in case of newer buildings, are covered with earth-colored adobe plaster, resembling the traditional building style of the Pueblo people in the Southwest. This is not the original look of the city, however, but a historical recreation with a deliberate purpose to give the city an exceptional appearance for tourist purposes after 1912.