The History of Our Parish

In learning about the history of the Santa Rosa de Lima parish we need to go back to the early 1800's when San Miguel del Bado was founded. San Miguel del Bado is located in what is now Ribera, New Mexico on Interstate 25 between Las Vegas and Santa Fe. The church there had the same name as the settlement, which was on the Santa Fe Trail. The correct spelling is actually "vado" which means a ford. The name was originally spelled with a "b instead of a "y" and have chosen to use the old spelling. San Miguel del Bado was located where the Santa Fe Trail crossed the Pecos River.

San Miguel del Bado was our first parish. Priests from San Miguel del Bado would make periodic visits to Anton Chico, Puerto de Luna, Agua Negra and other small communities.  Church records were kept at San Miguel del Bado for baptisms, weddings and burials.

In 1857 Joseph Baptiste Fayet established a parish, San José, in Anton Chico with missions in La Cueva, La Montosa, Anton Chico de Arriba, El Tecolotíto, Valles de San Agustín, Valles de San Antonio, and Valles de San Isidro. With that, Santa Rosa went from being part of the San Miguel del Bado parroquia, parish, to the parroquia of San José in Anton Chico.

Father Auguste François Joseph Redon was the pastor at Anton Chico from 1866 through 1902. As such he was the pastor of the area that included Santa Rosa for a large part of that time, or until Puerto de Luna became a parroquia independent of San José in Anton Chico. Prior to the establishment of a parroquia at Anton Chico, the communities being served by priests from San Miguel del Bado were called visitas because they were periodically visited by priests. Those priests were from the parroquia and did not reside at the visita.

Today the visitas are more commonly known as missions and often they are only visited by a priest on the feast day of the mission when a celebration known as a función is held. Funciones are attended by former residents as well as current residents and are a time of great festivity. Many families sometimes hold reunions during the función.

In l880 construction on a church named Nuestra Señora de Refugio was started in Puerto de Luna. According to some sources the first mass celebrated at Nuestra Señora de Refugio was a funeral mass for Juan Patrón in 1884. Juan Patrốn was one of the key figures in the Lincoln County War in the 1870's. He was also elected to the Territorial Legislature and at the time was the youngest representative ever selected Speaker of the House.

Juan Patrón was murdered in a saloon in Puerto de Luna. He had been very instrumental in the construction of the new church there and it was ironic that the first mass celebrated there was for his funeral. He is buried inside the church. Ironically, the saloon in which he was killed was located just north of the church.

In 1896, twelve years after the construction of Nuestra Señora de Refugio was completed, Puerto de Luna became its own parroquia and the first pastor was Simon Joseph Bartholome Alvernhe. Puerto de Luna was no longer a visita for Anton Chico's San José. Father Alvernhe was succeeded by Father Alphonse Haelterman, a Belgium. Haelterman was parish priest at Puerto de Luna from 1904 through 1911, when he died at age 44.

fn 1967 Father Haelterman led the people of Santa Rosa in building a new church, the current Saint Rose of Lima or Santa Rosa de Lima. A rectory was also built shortly after that and was located at he corner of 4th Street and La Pradira Avenue. The rectory remained unoccupied until 1924 because the parish priest, Father Joseph Pugens, preferred life in Puerto de Luna to living in Santa Rosa. In 1924 he was finally "persuaded" by the archbishop to move to Santa Rosa It was Father Pugens who would finally complete the church project in Santa Rosa that Father Haelterman had started before his untimely death.  Daniel B. Flores- Historian