Chapel of Santa Cruz

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

From the record

One of 40 National Register listings published here for Taos County · listed in 1975 · category: Building.

Sources: the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. S side of Plaza off U.S. 285, Ojo Caliente, 87549
When was it listed? April 1975
Category. building
Census division. Tres Piedras
National Register reference number. 75001174 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

28 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 28 fires within 5 miles of Chapel of Santa Cruz between 1992 and 2017, burning about 30 acres in total. 5 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	10
Natural	5
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Debris and open burning	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Recreation and ceremony	1
Smoking	1
Other causes	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
27 August 2011	Natural	under an acre	Carson National Forest	HONDO
25 August 2001	Natural	under an acre	New Mexico State Forestry Division	PRIVATE
1 August 1995	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	New Mexico State Forestry Division	OLIVER
9 July 2013	Natural	under an acre	Carson National Forest	CERRO FIRE
8 July 2000	Natural	under an acre	Carson National Forest	PLAZA
23 July 2009	Debris and open burning	under an acre	New Mexico State Forestry Division	PETACA
29 June 1992	Smoking	under an acre	Albuquerque District Office	OJITO
28 June 1997	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Albuquerque District Office	RANCHO

Every fire recorded in Taos County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 25 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 25 workings within 5 miles of Chapel of Santa Cruz: 13 prospects, 6 unknowns, 6 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Mica, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Geothermal, Quartz. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Los Compadres	Quartz	Unknown
Unknown	Geothermal	Unknown
Unknown Spring	Geothermal	Unknown
Borrow Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Materials Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Materials Pit No. 62-39-S	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Prospect
Materials Pit No. 62-42-S	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Prospect
Materials Pit No. 78-10-S	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Prospect
Materials Pit No. 78-41-S	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Prospect
Antonio Joseph Prospect	Mica	Prospect

Every working recorded in Taos County

Storms near this property

1 since 2021

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ojo Caliente, the town this property stands in, in 1 storm report in 2021: 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2021	Flash Flood	Ojo Caliente	$25,000	Heavy rain in Ojo Caliente resulted in flash flooding. Flood waters reportedly entered at least one mobile home, and debris and water covered many secondary roads east of U.S. Highway 285. The extent of damage to the mobile home is unknown, and damages are a rough estimate.

Every storm recorded in Taos County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs	0.3 miles	1985
	Ojo Caliente Hot Springs Round Barn	0.5 miles	2003

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 75001174 in Record Group 79.
Taos County	All 40 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.