It sits at the base of the La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs. The community holds a mass during June each year to celebrate St. The Capilla is open for pilgrimage on Good Friday. Los Crusados, a prayer group, conducts a weekend retreat at the Capilla every two years. Weddings and memorial masses are also held at the Capilla. The property and Capilla are used, and have always been used, for the sole purpo
se of religious services. A short history:
The land the Capilla sits on was occupied by Native Americans from 1300 to 1700 C.E. but they abandoned the land due to low-land flooding. It was then occupied by Francisco de Anaya Almazàn, a Spaniard, who acquired land grants in or around 1680. These land grants were reconfirmed in 1693 by Don Diego de Vargas. When the La Cieneguilla site was to be sold by Francisco de Anaya’s son, Joaquin. A lawsuit over the land ensued from 1831-1832 between the Romero, Montoya, and Mora families. In the end, the disputing families each received a section of the land. The Mora family acquired over 800 plus acres in three separate land grants in 1862. Anthony:
According to Sarah Mora-Nigro and Carmen Mora-Lisano, sisters, their Great Grandfather, Antonio Jose Mora, had brought the original statue of St. Anthony (which was stolen from the Capilla in 1987) from Portugal in the early 1800's, keeping it at the family home where the community would come and pray. During this time the community suffered many raids by the Comanche Indians and so the community made a velorio (promise) to St. Anthony that if the raids would subside and peace would come, the community would build a capilla honoring St. So in 1818-1820 the Capilla de San Antonio was constructed by the Mora family. Passed on from Antonio Jose Mora, ownership has gone to his son Eulogio Mora, to Frederico Mora, Sr., to Federico’s sister Rita Maria Mora, to her brother Jose Mora, to Federico Sr.’s son Fred Mora, Jr., to Fred’s wife Flora Mora, and currently to their granddaughter Larie Mora.
