Puerto de Luna, NM

Puerto de Luna is a Guadalupe County census-designated place on the Pecos River, about nine and a half miles south-southeast of Santa Rosa along New Mexico State Road 91. The river bottom is greener than the surrounding plains because irrigation has been part of the local story from the beginning. In 1863, six Hispanic families built a dike across the Pecos, diverted water, and began cultivating the valley. A post office followed in 1873, and acequias still mark the relationship between the settlement and the river.

Puerto de Luna became the first county seat of Guadalupe County in 1891, when Padre Polaco, also known as Alexander Grzelachowski, donated land for a courthouse. The county seat moved to Santa Rosa in 1903 after the railroad reached that town, leaving Puerto de Luna with the roofless remains of its old courthouse and the jail that served the county's first government. Local tradition also places Francisco Vázquez de Coronado here in 1541 and Billy the Kid at a Christmas Eve meal in 1880, though both stories belong to the area's lore. Santa Rosa Consolidated Schools serves the community. The 2020 census counted 155 residents, with the Pecos, old courthouse, and irrigated bottomlands still defining the place.