[2] The Rio Puerco Valley is notable for once hosting a significant numbers of ancestral Puebloan (descendants of the Basketmaker II) people, many of them fleeing the collapse of the Chacoan civilization.

Hispano colonists from Albuquerque and Bernalillo quickly occupied every irrigable patch of land along the Rio Puerco.

By the middle of the 20th century decades of overgrazing and flash flooding had rendered the Rio Puerco country virtually uninhabitable and it was abandoned.

[6] As it carries high levels of sediment, the Rio Puerco is a major source of suspended particulate matter.

[8] The USGS collects suspended-sediment samples at its stream gage three miles (5 km) above the river's mouth.