Hagerman, NM

Hagerman had 975 residents in 2020, in south-central Chaves County about two miles west of the Pecos River. New Mexico State Road 2 runs through town, pointing northwest toward Roswell and south toward Artesia. The Pecos Valley Railroad and the river shaped the wider settlement pattern, and the town’s name recalls railroad promoter James J. Hagerman, whose work helped connect communities along the Pecos. Hagerman’s landscape is a mix of irrigated farmland, open desert, and the cottonwoods that mark the river corridor.

School history runs deep here. The original Hagerman school building dates to the late 1800s, and Hagerman Municipal Schools still serve as one of the town’s main civic institutions. The short drive to the Pecos brings a different edge to the landscape, with water, fields, and river-bottom vegetation contrasting with the drier country around town. Roswell and Artesia handle larger regional trips, but Hagerman keeps its own pace through school events, farm roads, and the old railroad-and-river geography that put it on the map.