The Chronicles Of Grant County
Alamogordo Street
Deming
An aerial view of Alamogordo, New Mexico. (The photograph was provided courtesy of the United States Geological Survey, 2023.)
Alamogordo Street is a one-block long avenue in the City of Deming in Luna County. The street was named after Alamogordo, the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico.
A settlement was formally established by the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad at the site of today's Alamogordo in 1898. The name for this planned community was chosen by the railroad through the Alamogordo Improvement Company. "Alamogordo" is a combination of two Spanish words for "fat Poplar" or "fat Cottonwood" as in "Poplar tree" or "Cottonwood tree." Both "Poplar" and "Cottonwood" are used interchangeably by people in regards to the same tree.
Before the name was used for this community, "Alamogordo" was utilized as the name of a rail engine car by this railroad.
On the front page of the Santa Fe New Mexican on March 21, 1898, the newspaper reported that "the El Paso & Northeastern [Rail]road is negotiating for the manufacture of 300,000 feet of lumber and 300,000 ties from the timber lands adjacent to the line of the [rail]road...three new Baldwin 71-ton engines, named Alamogordo, La Luz, and Tularosa, have arrived..."
On April 16, 1898, the same newspaper detailed that a new town called "Alamogordo" was being built "...in eastern Doña Ana County, which will be one of the principal places on the line of the El Paso & Northeastern Railroad, and headquarters for the [rail]road's New Mexico business."
At this time in history, Otero County had not yet been created; that would happen during the following year in 1899.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reprinted a news article from the Sacramento Chief on April 20, 1898, confirming that "Alamogordo is the name selected for the new town now being surveyed and platted five miles south of La Luz...The site for the new city is a most beautiful and natural one...The waters of Alamo [Canyon] are to be utilized in supplying electric powers for the city, for lighting, manufacturing purposes, and operating electric street railways."
During a 14-year time period – from 1898 to 1912 – Alamogordo went from a plan on paper to incorporation as a village to disincorporation as a village to incorporation as a town. Subsequently, it became a city.
An election was held on February 28, 1910, to incorporate Alamogordo as a village. The voters approved the incorporation. This election and its results were confirmed through news articles printed in The Alamogordo News on February 17, 1910, and on March 10, 1910.
This incorporation lasted less than a year.
In an election held on August 2, 1910, residents of Alamogordo voted to disincorporate the municipality.
Two days later, on August 4, 1910, The Alamogordo News reported on its front page the vote results of this election: 109 people voted for disincorporation, 54 voted against disincorporation.
In the same front page news article from this newspaper, it was reported that on August 3, 1910, Otero County had formally accepted the results of the election: "A special meeting of the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Otero, New Mexico...the following proceedings were had to-wit: It is therefore ordered that the Village of Alamogordo be and the same is hereby declared disincorporated."
At that point, the municipality of Alamogordo no longer existed as a separate governmental entity.
On April 17, 1912, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that "Alamogordo will vote on May 7 whether to reincorporate. The town had been incorporated but in recent years disincorporated in order to get rid of a Prohibition ordinance."
The newspaper was alluding to a dispute regarding the regulation and enforcement of that regulation of a saloon in Alamogordo in 1910. It was that dispute that was reported to have been the reason that voters decided to disincorporate as a village in that year.
The vote to incorporate as a town was approved by voters in Alamogordo on May 7, 1912, according to an editorial headlined "The Town Is Incorporated" published in The Alamogordo News on May 9, 1912.
The specific date when the Town of Alamogordo became the City of Alamogordo is not certain. For a number of decades, both "town" and "city" were used to describe Alamogordo, including in both news articles as well as in official advertisements from the municipality and Otero County.
According to the Code of Ordinances of Alamogordo, the present city charter for the municipality was approved and adopted on March 9, 1983; the city charter has been amended several times since that passage.
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© 2023 Richard McDonough