County Past
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Union County, New Mexico

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

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
12historic places
—earliest paper
1894formed
4,079pop. 2020
48cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 12 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1966; 1 is also National Historic Landmark. Most listings are in or near Clayton, Amistad, Capulin.

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 Union titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

3 of 12 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

12 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Amistad GymnasiumAmistadBuilding1996
Capulin Volcano National Monument Historic DistrictCapulinDistrict2025
Clayton Public LibraryClaytonBuilding2002
Clayton Public Schools Historic DistrictClaytonDistrict1996
Eklund HotelClaytonBuilding2002
Folsom HotelFolsomBuilding1987
Gate, Fence and Hollow Tree Shelter Designed by Dionicio RodriguezClaytonStructure2008
Goodson Memorial SchoolSenecaBuilding2003
Luna TheaterClaytonBuilding2007
Rabbit Ears NHLClaytonDistrict1966
Santa Fe Trail-Magazine Ruts SegmentSofiaSite2013
Union County CourthouseClaytonBuilding1987

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

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Union was formed in 1894 (1894-01-01) from unknown / original county.

UNION created by New Mexico Terr. from COLFAX, MORA, and SAN MIGUEL.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

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

17k10k4,07919001920196020002020
19001920194019501960198020002020
4,52816,6809,0957,3726,0684,7254,1744,079

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).

SiteTypeDist.
Capulin Volcano National MonumentPark unit55.1 km

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

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

48 cemeteries and 7 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 48 of 48 listed
NameLatLon
Amistad Cemetery35.90753-103.17794
Antioch Cemetery36.39417-103.32851
Atencio Cemetery36.76668-103.12618
Baker Cemetery36.64384-103.03694
Brown CemeteryNoneNone
Centerville Cemetery35.79818-103.09832
Clayton Cemetery36.44532-103.16467
Corrumpa Cemetery36.78222-103.50815
County Cemetery36.44546-103.16597
Creeds Chapel Cemetery36.57711-103.0549
Cuates Cemetery36.78602-103.32347
Dempsey Cemetery36.2824-103.6842
Des Moines Catholic Cemetery36.76317-103.83684
Des Moines Cemetery36.77158-103.831
Drew Cemetery36.85106-103.91075
Drew Cemetery36.84522-103.91722
Emery Gap Cemetery36.97009-103.89583
Fairview Cemetery35.82355-103.16154
Folsom Cemetery36.83622-103.93271
Garcia Plaza Cemetery36.16087-103.51526
Gladstone Cemetery36.28994-103.96456
Grandview Cemetery36.65489-103.28968
Grenville Cemetery36.59815-103.60413
Hardesty CemeteryNoneNone
Hayden Cemetery35.96566-103.27071
Holy Trinity Catholic Cemetery35.96942-103.26959
Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery36.44695-103.16472
La Morada Cemetery36.27053-103.56416
Martinez Cemetery36.77055-103.922
Moses Cemetery36.684-103.111
Ojo Bonito Cemetery36.22651-103.55746
Ojo del Pinaveta Cemetery36.76257-103.85271
Otto Cemetery36.38085-103.36549
Overbay Cemetery36.16334-103.33472
Padilla Cemetery36.75222-103.47042
Pennington Cemetery36.3048-103.63586
Pleasant Hill Cemetery36.82515-103.54026
Puertocito Cemetery36.74636-103.06446
Reeves Cemetery36.50268-103.19468
Rinker Cemetery36.64585-103.10992
Rivera Cemetery36.7805-103.45809
San Juan Batista Church Cemetery36.11756-103.60812
Sanchez Cemetery36.29488-103.55339
Sedan Cemetery36.15952-103.14175
Shaha Cemetery36.11573-103.07895
Sofia Cemetery36.45202-103.85951
Thomas Cemetery36.26057-103.28393
Wanette Cemetery36.61835-103.18562
Historical populated places — 7 of 7
NameLatLon
Corrumpa36.78224-103.50773
Cuates36.78586-103.32383
Emery Gap36.99613-103.86691
Garcia36.16087-103.51551
Madison36.88086-103.87358
Tate36.3042-103.4005
Willow Springs36.82058-103.58301

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 Union County, New Mexico

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