Santa Clara, NM

Santa Clara is a Grant County village on U.S. 180, about seven miles east of Silver City and two miles south of Bayard. The road wraps around the village, but the deeper local reference is Fort Bayard, which sits just north and shaped Santa Clara’s early role as a place supplying services to the military post. Santa Clara is also the oldest village in the Silver City district, and the nearby Fort Bayard Historic District keeps that connection in view. With the county seat west in Silver City and Bayard just south, Santa Clara reads as part of a small cluster of mining and military communities in southwestern New Mexico.