Portales: Cattle Springs, the Peevine, and the High Plains Edge

Portales sits in the far eastern reach of New Mexico, near the Texas border, on the flat Llano Estacado, the staked plains that Coronado's soldiers found so disorienting they drove stakes into the ground to find their way back. The town took its name from Portales Springs, a natural water source used by cattlemen and travelers crossing the high plains. Josh Morrison established a trading post at the springs around eighteen ninety-seven and laid out the townsite in eighteen ninety-eight when the Pecos Valley and Northeastern Railway, locally called the Peevine, pushed its tracks through.

Roosevelt County was carved out of the surrounding territory in nineteen oh three and named for President Theodore Roosevelt. Today Portales is the county seat and home to Eastern New Mexico University, founded in nineteen twenty-seven.