New Mexico has beckoned as a land of enchantment ever since Spanish conquistadors invaded it in the 16th century, searching for riches.

While they never found fabled streets paved with gold, some of Coronado’s footsore soldiers may have been just as happy to stumble on the mineral hot springs known as Ojo Caliente, some 50 miles north of present-day Santa Fe.

Each of the four springs bubbling up from an underground volcanic aquifer has a distinct mineral content and, according to local beliefs, its own healing properties. The Indians put enough faith in these waters to build several pueblos in the hills surrounding them. The villages were abandoned shortly before the Spaniards arrived, but their ruins are still visible to hikers who climb primitive dirt trails above the town.

Investor Antonio Joseph developed Ojo Caliente into a privately held health spa in 1880, when New Mexico was still a territory and its governor, Lew Wallace, was dealing with Apache raiding parties and Billy the Kid and writing his novel “Ben-Hur.”

In addition to its spa, Ojo Caliente boasted a post office and general store, whose customers included frontiersman Kit Carson. By the 1930s, the place was renowned as a sanitarium, offering 21-day cures for everything from rheumatism to gallstones. Today, Ojo Caliente has become a haven for anyone seeking respite from the stresses of modern life.

In 2000, the new owners of the spa, Sherman and Joyce Scott, began looking for ways to draw on the region’s rich Native American heritage. They invited Apache master potter Felipe Ortega to offer five-day workshops in traditional Indian coil-and-scrape pottery making, using mica-rich clay dug from nearby hills. Many participants have never made a pot before.

“People come here and don’t know what Ojo Caliente is all about,” Ortega tells Smithsonian magazine. “They have heard of the springs, but few know the pueblo history. They don’t even know there was a village up there above the springs. I want people to get an American Indian experience.”