Fort Sumner

History

Named after former New Mexico Territory military governor Edwin Vose Sumner, U.S. Fort Sumner was a military fort established in 1862 and charged with the internment of nearby Navajo and Mescalero Apache populations from 1863 to 1868. The federal government closed the fort in 1868 and sold its buildings to Lucien Maxwell, a prominent New Mexico landowner, in 1870. In the latter 1870s Maxwell's son Pete and daughter Paulita befriended legendary outlaw Billy the Kid, and it was in his house that Billy was killed by Pat Garrett. Billy the Kid is buried in the old military cemetery in Fort Sumner, as is Lucien Maxwell. In 1866, the U.S. government was holding thousands of Native American Indians at Fort Sumner after they were subdued by Kit Carson. Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving saw a business opportunity and decided to sell beef to the United States Government so that the captive, displaced, and imprisoned Native Americans could be fed. This enterprise led to the establishment of the Goodnight-Loving Trail. In March 1908, the Eastern Railway of New Mexico (as subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway) arrived as part of the Belen Cutoff; now BNSF. In the 1920s the Transcontinental Air Transport airline built an airfield in Fort Sumner as part of its coast-to-coast air passenger network, but the site was abandoned when the airline's ambitious plans collapsed in the Great Depression. The airfield was reopened by the United States Army Air Forces as a training base during World War II. After the war, the base became the Fort Sumner Municipal Airport, and was chosen as a launch site for NASA's high-altitude balloon program (see Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility).

Geography

Fort Sumner is located northeast of the center of De Baca County on the north side of the Pecos River. U.S. Route 60 passes through the village as Sumner Avenue, leading east to Clovis and west to Vaughn. U.S. Route 84 comes in from the north as 4th Street, leading northwest to Santa Rosa. US 84 runs east from Fort Sumner with US 60 to Clovis and the Texas border beyond it. According to the United States Census Bureau, the village of Fort Sumner has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0.93%, is water.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Turkey Vulture

  Cathartes aura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,061
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  964
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  827
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  719
• Barn Swallow

  Hirundo rustica Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  686
• Western Kingbird

  Tyrannus verticalis Say, 1823 · Aves
  660
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  593
• Great-tailed Grackle

  Quiscalus mexicanus (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  569

Most recent

• M 3 — 2025-04-01
  22 km S of Newkirk, New Mexico
• M 2.6 — 2024-10-22
  29 km SW of Tucumcari, New Mexico
• M 2.7 — 2020-06-29
  5 km SSW of Newkirk, New Mexico
• M 2.8 — 2017-08-18
  13 km SW of Newkirk, New Mexico