Carrizozo

Albert Bacon Fall's ranch lay south of here at Three Rivers, and it sat at the center of the scandal that ended him. Fall bought the ranch in 1906. In 1921, as Interior Secretary, he took $100,000 from the oilman Edward Doheny, called a loan, to buy neighboring land that controlled the ranch's water, and Harry Sinclair bought a third interest in the place. Convicted of bribery in 1929, Fall entered the state penitentiary in Santa Fe by ambulance on July 20, 1931. Doheny was acquitted of paying the bribe.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Carrizozo Population 1,222 - Elevation 5,438 Carrizozo, county seat of Lincoln County, was established in 1899, a new town on the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad. The ghost town of White Oaks, once a boom- ing mining camp, is nearby. Billy the Kid, Sheriff Pat Garrett, Gov- ernor Lew Wallace, and Albert Bacon Fall all figured prominently in the history of the area.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smokey Bear Historical Park — 19 mi
  The small park in Capitan where the living Smokey Bear is buried, a cub found clinging to a burned tree in the Capitan Mountains in 1950, six years after the cartoon was invented.
• Three Rivers Petroglyph Site — 21 mi
  More than 21,000 petroglyphs on a basalt ridge above the Tularosa Basin, one of the few places in the Southwest set aside for its rock art alone, walked on a rough half-mile trail.

More markers nearby

• Carrizozo Woman's Club — 0.5 mi
• Carrizozo — 1.2 mi
• Carrizozo — 1.3 mi
• Carrizozo — 1.4 mi