The Old Dowlin Mill
Near Ruidoso, New Mexico
On Sudderth Drive, in the middle of modern Ruidoso, stands a weathered wooden building with an old water wheel on its side, and it is the oldest structure in town. This is the Old Dowlin Mill, built in eighteen sixty-eight by Captain Paul Dowlin, a Civil War veteran who had served at nearby Fort Stanton. He set his mill where the Rio Ruidoso met Carrizo Creek and let the rushing water turn the wheel that powered his grinding stones.
Over the years the building was much more than a grist mill. It served as a general store, a blacksmith shop, a warehouse, even a bean thresher, and it became the social and commercial heart of the little settlement that would grow into Ruidoso, with Dowlin himself serving as its postmaster. It has a legend attached to it too.
Billy the Kid was said to be a friend of the families here, and one story holds that a woman named Annie Lesnett once hid the young outlaw from pursuing lawmen inside a barrel of flour. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in twenty thirteen, the mill still stands, a direct link to the very first days of this mountain town.
