Las Cruces

Las Cruces is a city in southern New Mexico, in the Mesilla Valley of the Rio Grande below the jagged Organ Mountains. The name means the crosses in Spanish and is said to come from crosses that stood beside the old road.

The town was laid out in 1849 by US Army officers on the Camino Real, the royal road between Mexico City and Santa Fe. Cotton, chile and grain grew on land of the Mesilla Valley watered by ditches from the Rio Grande. The Gadsden Purchase of the 1850s made the land south of the town part of the United States. The railway arrived in the 1880s, and New Mexico State University was founded as an agricultural college in 1888. A dam upstream on the river brought steady water to the valley in the early 20th century.

Pecans from orchards of the Mesilla Valley, among them the Stahmann Farms, are shelled and shipped across the United States. Green chile from the farms of the valley and nearby Hatch is roasted in the fall in big rotating drums at markets and roadside stands, and the Chile Pepper Institute at the university breeds new varieties. NASA tests rocket engines and spacecraft materials at the White Sands Test Facility east of the city.

The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, protected in the 2010s, has trails among granite spires and desert canyons. The New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum keeps cattle, horses and old farm machines on a working farm. The Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market fills the main street every Saturday and Wednesday.