Ojo Caliente: The Springs That Feed Four Different Waters

Ojo Caliente, which is Spanish for "warm eye" or "hot spring," has been drawing people to soak in its waters for centuries. Tewa Pueblo ancestors built terraced gardens and villages overlooking these springs long before Spanish contact. What makes the site geologically unusual is that it produces four distinct sulfur-free mineral waters within a small area , lithia, iron, soda, and arsenic springs , each with different therapeutic properties.

The resort bills it as the only place in the world where this combination emerges sulfur-free. In eighteen sixty-eight, Antonio Joseph, who would become New Mexico's first Territorial Representative to Congress, built the first formal bathhouse here. Kit Carson is said to have been a regular customer at the nearby store.

The resort it grew into became one of the oldest continuously operating natural health resorts in the United States. Today the Ojo Spa Resort operates on the same site, still fed by the same four mineral springs.