Reserve, NM

Reserve is a village in Catron County, New Mexico, United States. The 2020 census counted 293 residents. Reserve is the county seat of Catron County. Currently the village has two grocery stores, a hardware store, a bar, fairgrounds, and a health clinic. Reserve makes sense once you see how its past, landscape, and current gathering spots overlap. The useful thing to know about Reserve is that its older landmarks and current settings belong to one connected place. Reserve is the site where Elfego Baca held off a gang of Texan cowboys who wanted to kill him for arresting cowboy Charles McCarty. In the 1860s, Mexican-Americans established a string of villages along the San Francisco River, naming them the Upper, Lower, and Middle San Francisco Plazas. In the late 1870s Anglo settlers began arriving.