On July 7, 1540, Coronado captured the first city, the Pueblo of Hawikuh, which he named Granada. After the capture of this place the Indians retired to their stronghold on Thunder Mountain. Coronado reconnoitered and on August 3rd dispatched Juan Gallego with a letter to Mendoza, advising him of the progress and achievements of the expedition.

The army went into winter quarters at Tiguex, near the present city of Albuquerque, New Mexico and during the winter subjugated the hostile natives in the pueblos of the Rio Grande River. While at Tiguex, Coronado heard from one of the plains Indians, a slave in the village of Cicuye, the stories about Quivira. This Indian, whom the Spaniards called "The Turk," told them his masters had instructed him to lead them to certain barren plains, where water and food could not be obtained, and leave them there to perish, or, if they succeeded in finding their way back they would be so weakened as to fall an easy prey.

George Parker Winship, in his 1896 book, The Coronado Expedition, said:

"The Turk may have accompanied Alvarado on the first visit to the great plains, and he doubtless told the white men about his distant home and the roving life on the prairies. It was later, when the Spaniards began to question him about nations and rulers, gold and treasures, that he received, perhaps from the Spaniards themselves, the hints which led him to tell them what they were rejoiced to hear, and to develop the fanciful pictures which appealed so forcibly to all the desires of his hearers. The Turk, we cannot doubt, told the Spaniards many things which were not true. But in trying to trace these early dealings of the Europeans with the American aborigines, we must never forget how much may be explained by the possibilities of misrepresentation on the part of the white men, who so often heard of what they wished to find, and who learned, very gradually and in the end very imperfectly, to understand only a few of their native languages and dialects . . . . Much of what the Turk said was very likely true the first time he said it, although the memories of home were heightened, no doubt, by absence and distance. Moreover, Castaneda, who is the chief source for the stories of gold and lordly kings which are said to have been told by the Turk, in all probability did not know anything more than the reports of what the Turk was telling to the superior officers, which were passed about among the common foot soldiers. The present narrative (Castenada's) has already shown the wonderful power of gossip, and when it is gossip recorded twenty years afterward, we may properly be cautious in believing it."

Whatever the nature of the stories told by the Turk, they influenced Coronado to undertake an expedition to the province of Quivira. On April 10, 1541, he wrote from Tigeux to the king. That letter has been lost, but it no doubt contained a review of the information he had received concerning Quivira and an announcement of his determination to visit the province. The trusted messenger, Juan Gallego, was sent back to the Corazones for reinforcements, but found the town of San Hieronomo almost deserted. He then hastened to Mexico, where he raised a small body of recruits, with which he met Coronado as the latter was returning from Quivira.

On April 23, 1541, guided by the Turk, Coronado left Tiguex, taking with him every member of his army who was present at the time. The march was first to Sicuye (the Pecos Pueblo), a fortified village five days distant from Tiguex. From this point, the route followed by the expedition has been the subject of considerable discussion.

General J.H. Simpson, who devoted much time and study to the Spanish explorations of the southwest, prepared a map of the Coronado Expedition, showing that he crossed the Canadian River near the boundary between the present counties of Mora and San Miguel in New Mexico, then north to a point about half-way between the Arkansas and Canadian Rivers, and almost to the present line dividing Colorado and New Mexico. There, the course changed to the northeast and continued in that general direction to a tributary of the Arkansas River, about 50 miles west of Wichita, Kansas.