San Miguel Mission, Socorro, New Mexico

The city of Socorro, New Mexico is built in the center of a Spanish land grant. Socorro comes from the Spanish word "socorrer" (similar to the English word "succor") which translates as "to offer comfort" or "to aid". The Spanish arriving in the area in the late 1500s found friendly Indians who were willing to share their corn with them.

In the middle of Socorro, the San Miguel Mission church still exists as an active functioning church. Founded in 1598, it is one of the oldest Catholic churches in the United States. The church was founded and built (with help from local Indians) by Fray Alfonso Benevidez, who is called the Apostle of Socorro.

The church has been called the Mission de San Miguel since 1800. It has undergone many changes through the years, and was originally a structure in the adobe pueblo style, but now only bears a slight resemblance to the original style. to me it now has the look more of California's Spanish missions rather than New Mexico's.

We were there two weeks ago and I got these pictures:

The Church at Kelly, New Mexico

Three miles south of Magdalena, NM up in the mountains, is the ghost town of Kelly, NM, which was a coal mining town in the late 1800s till the mid-1900s. Kelly once had a population of 3,000 people but now is completely abandoned and you cannot drive back into the mine area. I have read that when the mine closed and Kelly declined, so did the town of Magdalena.

There is a cool little church in Kelly (St. John the Baptist), though, and I understand that they still have services there occasionally.

The little church at Cañoncito, NM

We saw this little church yesterday when we were out driving around. It's just off I-25, in Cañoncito, just west of Glorieta, NM. There were no signs on it, so I don't know if it is still an active church or not. There were some newer gravestones in the churchyard, so apparently parishioners are still being buried there.

I love getting pictures of cool churches, and New Mexico is full of them.