Name/Title
Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción del Socorro Mission [Greeting Card]Description
Warren Hunter signed #2/14 Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción del Socorro Mission greeting card. Etching by Warren Hunter, commissioned by the Southwest Research Institute.Context
This mission was built shorty after Ysleta.
The present structure is located (some twenty miles from El Paso) about half a mile from the original location. The vagrant Rio Bravo has washed most of it away.
The four-foot adobe walls are gone, but the vigas, the original beams, are preserved. They are colorful with carved painted flowers joined by a leafy vine, a modification of the Pueblo Indians main cloud symbol. As at Ysleta, they hold up the long flat roof.
The altar looks as though it were carved from marble. It is not. Unless you come close enough to knock on it, you would not know that it is made of wood, carefully crafted by local artisans to simulate stone.
There is an interesting statue of St. Miguel, the Archangel, at a side altar. It is said that it was being transported elsewhere in the early nineteenth century when it bogged down in the mud and so the parishoners decided it belonged here. It was the subject of great controversy a few years ago when church officials tried to have it moved for repairs. The parishoners, some of whom believed it contained a fortune in gold and others who felt their welfare was ties to its being at Socorro, forced church officials to return it unrepaired.
It stands guardian over the area.