The New York Times, October 26, 2008
In New Mexico, Balm in a Volcanic Landscape
Perched at 6,300 feet and sandwiched between two striking red-rock mesas, the New Mexico town of Jemez Springs has long been a place of uncommon natural beauty and a refuge for all manner of pilgrims. In the 13th century, the Jemez people migrated to the valley, establishing a series of settlements in the area’s canyons; in the 17th century, Franciscan missionaries arrived, forcibly establishing a church in the Guisewa Pueblo — now the remarkably preserved Jemez State Monument. By the 1870s, a bathhouse was built, offering curative soaks in tubs fed by the town’s famous mineral hot springs.