Tularosa: Rose-Colored Reeds and an Acequia Still Running

Tularosa sits at the northern edge of the Tularosa Basin, where the Sacramento Mountains push down toward White Sands. The name comes from the Spanish description for the rose-colored reeds growing along the banks of the Rio Tularosa. Tular means reed, and the stream's reddish hue gave the village its identity.

Mexican farmers from the Rio Grande valley made the first successful settlement attempt in eighteen sixty-two, after an earlier effort in eighteen sixty had been driven off by Mescalero Apache raids. They laid out forty-nine blocks and distributed water rights from the beginning, building an acequia irrigation system that, remarkably, remains operational today, still running water through the village just as it did one hundred sixty years ago. The Tularosa Townsite District, encompassing the original plat and one hundred eighty-two historic buildings, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen seventy-nine.