Tularosa

The 1862 townsite the panel mentions was laid out as forty-nine blocks of four lots each, one block kept for the church, and ditches were dug to carry water from the Rio Tularosa to every block. The settlers came from Mesilla and other Rio Grande towns after floods took their fields. The original acequia still waters the street trees and gardens. Later, English-speaking newcomers upstream took the water, and the fights over it became known as the Tularosa ditch wars. Eugene Manlove Rhodes put the town into his novels as Oasis.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Tularosa The Tularosa Basin has been occupied by Indian groups for thousands of years. The first Hispanic settlers moved here from the Rio Grande Valley in 1862. Anglo settlers and cattlemen began moving into the region in the 1870's. The original 1862 townsite has been designated a State and National Historic District. Tularosa appears as "Oasis" in the novels of Eugene Manlove Rhodes.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Three Rivers Petroglyph Site — 20 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.
• White Sands National Park — 21 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

• La Luz — 6.1 mi
• Round Mountain — 9.7 mi
• New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired — 10 mi
• Commission for the Blind Orientation Center — 12 mi