The Mescalero Apache — People of the Tularosa Basin
Near Alamogordo, New Mexico
Before the railroads, before the military installations, before the town of Alamogordo existed, the Tularosa Basin and the Sacramento Mountains were home to the Mescalero Apache. The name Mescalero comes from their use of the mescal, the agave plant, whose hearts they roasted in large earthen pits as a staple food. Their territory extended from the basin floor up through the mountain forests and across into the desert plains on either side of the Rio Grande.
The Mescalero oral tradition holds that they have always lived in this place, and archaeological evidence of Apache presence in the region goes back several centuries. When Spanish colonizers established missions and settlements in New Mexico in the seventeenth century, they encountered the Mescalero as neighbors in an uneasy relationship that alternated between trade and conflict. American expansion into the Southwest beginning in the eighteen fifties created mounting pressure on Mescalero territory, eventually leading to a period of forced relocation and military conflict.
A reservation was established for the Mescalero in eighteen seventy-three, first near Fort Stanton and later expanded into the Sacramento Mountains near what is now Ruidoso. The tribe retained that land. Today the Mescalero Apache Tribe operates a major ski resort called Ski Apache, a casino resort, and one of the largest private cattle operations in New Mexico on the reservation.
The tribal headquarters at Mescalero is a short drive from Alamogordo, making the Mescalero presence not history but a living fact of the region.
