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Otero County, New Mexico

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

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

33historic places

—earliest paper

1899formed

67,839pop. 2020

20cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 33 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1979. Most listings are in or near Alamogordo, Cloudcroft, La Luz.

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 Otero titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

16 of 33 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

33 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Administration Building	Alamogordo	Building	1989
Alamogordo Woman's Club	Alamogordo	Building	2003
Archeological Site No. AR-03-08-02-409	Timberon	Site	1998
Archeological Site No. AR-03-08-02-415	Timberson	Site	1998
Archeological Site No. AR-03-08-03-128	Queen	Site	1995
Auditorium and Recreation Building	Alamogordo	Building	1989
Bluewater Lookout Complex	Weed	Structure	1988
Bridge A 249-Cloudcroft, New Mexico	Cloudcroft	Structure	2015
Carrisa Lookout Complex	Long Canyon	Structure	1988
Central Receiving Building	Alamogordo	Building	1989
Circle Cross Ranch Headquarters	Sacramento	Building	1980
Fresnal Shelter	High Rolls	Site	1998
Garcia, Juan, House	La Luz	Building	1980
Hay Canyon Logging Camp	Mayhill	Site	1992
Hubbell Canyon Log Chute	Cloudcroft	Site	1991
Infirmary Building	Alamogordo	Building	1989
Jackson House	Almogordo	Building	2004
La Luz Historic District	La Luz	District	1980
La Luz Pottery Factory (Additional Documentation)	La Luz	Building	1979
Lee, Oliver, Dog Canyon Ranch	Alamogordo	District	2015
Mayhill Administrative Site	Mayhill	District	1989
Mexican Canyon Trestle	Cloudcroft	Structure	1979
Orogrande School	Orogrande	Building	2025
Queen Anne House	La Luz	Building	1980
St. Joseph Apache Mission Church	Mescalero	Building	2005
Sutherland, D. H., House	La Luz	Building	1980
Tularosa Original Townsite District	Tularosa	District	1979
US Post Office-Alamogordo	Alamogordo	Building	2000
Weed Lookout Tower	Sacramento	Structure	1988
White Sands National Monument Historic District	Alamogordo	District	1988
White Sands National Park Historic District (Additional Documentation)	Alamogordo	District	1988
Wills Canyon Spur Trestle	Cloudcroft	Site	1991
Wofford Lookout Complex	Cloudcroft	Structure	1988

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

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Otero was formed in 1899 (1899-01-30) from unknown / original county.

OTERO created by New Mexico Terr. from DOÑA ANA, LINCOLN, and SOCORRO.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Otero County population from 1900 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
4,791	7,902	10,522	14,909	36,976	44,665	62,298	67,839

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

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
White Sands National Monument	Park unit	50.7 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

20 cemeteries and 2 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 20 of 20 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Avis Cemetery	32.69534	-105.4631
Baird Cemetery	32.95401	-105.64728
Bass Cemetery	32.90544	-105.68386
Blazers Cemetery	33.15716	-105.78429
Cienega Cemetery	32.05062	-105.10358
Immaculate Conception Catholic Cemetery	32.88952	-105.94565
Jeffers Cemetery	32.71601	-105.57978
Lusk Cemetery	32.81214	-105.46072
Marcia Cemetery	32.82829	-105.75502
Mayhill Cemetery	32.88247	-105.48708
Mescalero Indian Cemetery	33.14809	-105.77582
Monte Vista Cemetery	32.88794	-105.9427
Mountain Acres Cemetery	32.89094	-105.49136
Our Lady of Guadalupe Cemetery	33.15918	-105.85477
Piñon Cemetery	32.62525	-105.38654
Sixteen Springs Canyon Cemetery	32.98991	-105.57768
Walters Cemetery	33.15971	-105.85591
Weed Cemetery	32.80217	-105.51857
White Dove of the Desert Cemetery	32.93727	-105.94199
Whitetail Cemetery	33.21663	-105.57495

Historical populated places — 2 of 2

Name	Lat	Lon
Cienega	32.0515	-105.10023
Monista	32.83481	-106.07416

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 Otero County, New Mexico

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