Northeastern New Mexico’s MainStreet Communities: Clayton, Las Vegas and Raton
The Mountains and plains surrounding our Northern New Mexico MainStreet communities offer everything from dinosaurs to old west ruins to the Civil War!
For the gun enthusiast, the NRA Whittington Center receives 150,000 visitors a year to its ranges. Their facilities, minutes south of Raton, are considered to be the most comprehensive in the United States! A half hour south is Maxwell National Wildlife Refuge home to bald eagles, deer, duck, and sandhill cranes. If really, really, REALLY old history is your thing, 39 miles east of Raton is Folsom Museum, site of the arrowhead finding of the same name that proved man roamed these parts as far back as 10,000 years ago. Walk right into a volcano at Capulin Volcano National Monument. Just 30 miles east of Raton, you can stand on the crater of the volcano that last erupted 60,000 years ago. 40 miles west of Raton is Ted Turner’s historic Vermejo Park Ranch, where in the 1920’s Herbert Hoover and Douglas Fairbanks visited the exclusive resort. Today, it is a not only a resort, but a specialty hunting lodge, a fishing destination and working Bison ranch!
40 miles south of Raton is Cimarron, where you can tour “Old Town” and stay at the (possibly!) haunted St.James Hotel, where the likes of Jesse James, Buffalo Billy Cody and Wyatt Earp all bed down. While in Cimarron, check out the nearby Seton Memorial Library home of the personal collections of Boy Scouts of America founder Ernest Thompson Seton, and the world famous Philmont Scout Ranch, where thousands of Scouts flock each year.
Just 15 minutes outside Clayton, you can follow the United States first westward trail, the Santa Fe Trail. There are several sites to find the ruts left as traders and settlers moved west in the mid-1800’s. Tracks of a different sort were left 100 million years ago by dinosaurs who roamed the area now known as Clayton Lakes State Park. A short 15 mile drive north brings you to Dinosaur Trackway, where you’ll discover 500 well preserved footprints from 8 different kinds of dinosaurs.
The Santa Fe Trail travelers required protection, so the largest fort in the Southwest was constructed at Fort Union. Just 28 miles from Las Vegas, tour the ruins and check out the large network of Santa Fe Trail ruts. 40 minutes from Las Vegas, the largest Pueblo in New Mexico existed until 1838 at Pecos National Historical Park. Explore the area Coronado visited in 1540, the Civil War Battle of Glorieta was fought, and archeologist Alfred Kidder developed his groundbreaking excavation techniques. Las Vegas is also with an hour of 2 of the states 5 National Forests, Santa Fe and Carson.
