Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

The largest stone—as opposed to adobe—mission church in New Mexico is Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Cuarac, now called Quarai (Nuestra Senora de la Punisima Concepcion de Cuarac), which dates from the seventeenth century. Franciscan missionaries built the first chapel on this Pueblo site in 1615-1620. Today one may still see fragments of its stone walls. With its single-nave design, polygonal apse, and dirt floor this small church was typical of other New Mexican missions built between 1598 and 1630. The structure was razed to the ground in 1625 when building began on a new, more monumental stone church. In 1632 this church became the seat of the Inquisition in New Mexico. In 1678 the inhabitants abandoned the site due to Apache attacks, and the church was left unfinished. Today the remains of a one-hundredfoot- long nave with walls...