Blackdom Townsite

Frank Boyer walked here. A college-educated teacher threatened by the Klan in Georgia, he set out on foot for the Pecos Valley in the late 1890s, drawn by family stories of New Mexico told by a Boyer who had driven wagons in the Mexican War. In 1903, years before the date on this panel, he and twelve other Black homesteaders formed the Blackdom Townsite Company and advertised for settlers. When the water failed, the Boyers led wagons to Vado on the Rio Grande around 1920 to begin again; those who stayed formed an oil company.

What the plaque says

Blackdom Townsite West of this location stood the now abandoned community of Blackdom. The community was founded circa 1908 by Francis Marion Boyer and his wife Ella. Several dozen African American families homesteaded nearly 15,000 acres of land and built a self-sustaining community that boasted a general store and a Baptist Church. Officially platted in 1920, the community was eventually abandoned due to continued problems with irrigation from the distant Pecos River.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bottomless Lakes State Park — 16 mi
  Nine sinkhole lakes under red bluffs east of Roswell, named by vaqueros whose ropes never touched bottom, and set aside in 1933 as New Mexico's first state park.
• International UFO Museum and Research Center — 21 mi
  A 1930s movie theater on Roswell's Main Street turned into a museum by two men who had been part of the 1947 story, one of them the officer who announced the flying disc.

More markers nearby

• Rio Felix Bridge — 6.6 mi
• Civilian Conservation Corps — 7.8 mi
• Roswell Prisoner of War Camp — 11 mi
• Artesia — 14 mi