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Lea County, New Mexico

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

6historic places

—earliest paper

1917formed

74,455pop. 2020

24cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 6 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1987. Most listings are in or near Lovington, Hobbs.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for New Mexico is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Lea titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

2 of 6 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

6 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Laguna Plata Archeological District	Hobbs	District	1989
Lea County Courthouse	Lovington	Building	1987
Lea Theater	Lovington	Building	2007
Lovington Fire Department Building	Lovington	Building	2008
Pyburn House	Lovington	Building	1995
Sewalt, Mathew Elmore, House	Lovington	Building	2006

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Lea was formed in 1917 (1917-06-08) from Chaves, Eddy.

LEA created from CHAVES and EDDY.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Lea County population from 1920 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
3,545	21,154	30,717	53,429	55,993	55,511	74,455

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

24 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 24 of 24 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Antioch Baptist Church Cemetery	33.0646	-103.10152
Boone Cemetery - Memorial Park Cemetery	32.72678	-103.12855
Brunson Memorial Cemetery	32.42508	-103.1612
Cox Cemetery	33.07557	-103.29953
Crockett Cemetery	32.63038	-103.44296
Everglades Cemetery	32.67427	-103.11631
Jal Cemetery	32.09264	-103.17992
Jal Cooper Cemetery	32.2095	-103.22935
Jenkins Cemetery	33.51223	-103.34021
King Cemetery	33.15507	-103.23189
Knowles Cemetery	32.86353	-103.14536
Lovington Cemetery	32.96845	-103.35688
Memorial Gardens	32.73368	-103.12857
Monument Cemetery	32.61466	-103.23877
Morgan Cemetery	32.63053	-103.44245
Morgan Cemetery	32.65702	-103.4368
Murphy Chapel Cemetery	None	None
Murphys Chapel Cemetery	33.19927	-103.11104
Old Coggins Place Cemetery	None	None
Old Plainview Cemetery	33.08563	-103.31605
Prairie Haven Cemetery	32.68392	-103.11271
Resthaven Cemetery	32.98614	-103.31865
Soldier Hill Cemetery	33.32066	-103.71023
Tatum Cemetery	33.25172	-103.30097

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Lea County, New Mexico

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.