The Socorro mission church and pueblo were founded in 1682 to resettle Piro, Tano, and Jémez Indians who fled with the Spanish Franciscans from Socorro, New Mexico, following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The flood of 1829 destroyed the mission and the pueblo. Rebuilding took until 1843 for the body of the church; the bell tower was added and the sanctuary expanded in 1873. The church is a tall, narrow building with adobe walls nearly five feet thick, a projecting sanctuary, and transepts. It is roughly H-shaped in plan. A baptistery and a mortuary chapel located each side of the entrance form one side of the H. A parapet wall steps up from the rooflines of the two side chambers to a central, arched espadaña with a single bell. The parapets also step up at the corners of the front screen wall. Two sacristies and side chapels bracket the chancel, forming the back leg of the H (see p. 402).
Inside, the nave is 114 feet in length and 20 feet wide, forming an extraordinarily powerful space. A single central aisle runs from the entrance (under a choir loft) to the raised chancel. Short rows of pews flank the central aisle. Two windows on each side of the nave provide dim light. The painted wooden vigas that span the nave were salvaged from the eighteenth-century church. The vigas support round latillas laid in a herringbone pattern (they alternate three sticks stained black with five stained white), and wall brackets with deeply carved lobes support the beams. The multilayered baroque altar is raised on steps above the nave level and set behind a wood balustrade. To the south across a large dusty plaza is the cemetery.