New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Before this school, blind children in the territory were sent to Santa Fe, to an institution founded for deaf students and called in the 1890s the Asylum for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind. In 1903 William Ashton Hawkins, Alamogordo's member of the territorial legislature, carried the bill creating the New Mexico Institute for the Blind here, and it opened in September 1906 with twenty-one students, two teachers and a superintendent. It has since been renamed three times, most recently in 2004, and opened an Albuquerque campus for young children in 1974.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired The New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired was founded on granted land in 1903 by the new territorial governor. The teacher and later regent was the blind daughter of lawman Pat Garrett, Elizabeth Garrett, who solicited the support of Helen Keller for the school's expansion. Ms. Garret also wrote the state song, O, Fair New Mexico.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• White Sands National Park — 15 mi
  The largest gypsum dunefield on Earth, a national park since 2019, surrounded on all sides by military ground whose missile tests close its only road for hours at a time.

More markers nearby

• Commission for the Blind Orientation Center — 1.3 mi
• La Luz — 4.4 mi
• Calvin Boles — 7.8 mi
• Tularosa — 10 mi