This Monument is at Jemez Springs, sixty miles north of Albuquerque on
State Highway 4.
One of the finest early mission churches was established at Giusewa
Pueblo. _Giusewa_ means “place of the boiling waters” in the language of
the Jemez Indians, and refers to the famous Jemez Hot Springs nearby.
The mission, with Pecos, was one of the two earliest in New Mexico.
These were founded one hundred and fifty-two years before the first
California missions.
The original settlement of the Giusewa Pueblo goes back hundreds of
years before Columbus’ discovery of America, as does the settlement of
the other pueblos, Quarai, Abo, and Pecos.
Guisewa Pueblo became extinct during the last quarter of the seventeenth
century, a result of the consolidation of several pueblos of the Jemez
province into fewer and larger towns. Only one town, the present Jemez
Pueblo, survives from that time. Excavation and repairs have been made
in the ruins of both the pueblo and the mission church.