Carrizozo, New Mexico
14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1938 and the latest in 1982. It stands in the Carrizozo census division. It lies in ZIP code area 88301. It lies near Lemon Draw. The Survey maps it on the Carrizozo West quadrangle. 972 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 5,436 feet above sea level.
On record in Carrizozo
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 3 records
Carrizozo Woman's Clublisted 2003- Carrizozo Commercial Historic Districtlisted 2016
- Paden's Drug Storelisted 2005
Population over time
2 figuresCarrizozo fell from 996 to 972 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 996 | |
| 2020 | 972 | -24 (-2%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
8 surveys from 14 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1938 USGS Carrizozo quadrangle1:48000
- 1943 USGS Carrizozo quadrangle1:62500
- 1950 USGS Carrizozo quadrangle1:62500, 4 printings
- 1955 USGS Roswell quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Roswell quadrangle1:250000
- 1962 USGS Roswell quadrangle1:250000
- 1981 USGS Carrizozo quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1982 USGS Carrizozo West quadrangle1:24000
Photographs
8 of 22 photographs shown, 2020Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Every photograph of Lincoln County
Fires near this place
51 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 51 fires within 5 miles of Carrizozo between 1992 and 2014, burning about 704 acres in total. 19 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 22 |
| Natural | 19 |
| Debris and open burning | 3 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 3 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 2 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Fireworks | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 September 1994 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | New Mexico State Forestry Division | ROPER |
| 20 September 2000 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | New Mexico State Forestry Division | 117 |
| 5 August 2007 | Natural | 5.0 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | not named |
| 5 August 2002 | Natural | under an acre | New Mexico State Forestry Division | LY |
| 4 August 2011 | Debris and open burning | 3.0 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | MORALES |
| 4 August 2000 | Railroad operations and maintenance | under an acre | New Mexico State Forestry Division | TRACKS |
| 3 August 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | New Mexico State Forestry Division | OAK |
| 27 August 2009 | Natural | 2.0 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | SADDLE RIDGE |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
6 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Carrizozo: 2 occurrences, 2 producers, 1 unknown, 1 past producer. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Uranium, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carri2020 Plant | Iron | Producer | ||
| Harkey Prospect | Uranium | Occurrence | ||
| Lm&M Mill | Iron | Producer | ||
| Materials Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown | ||
| Pit Bp2 | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | Gravel | |
| Valley of Fire Road Cut | Uranium | Occurrence | 1955 |
Storms near this place
7 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Carrizozo in 7 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 2 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2018 | Hail | Carrizozo | $25,000 | Heavy amounts of hail between the size of nickels and quarters impacted Carrizozo. Several recreational vehicles suffered damage to sky lights. Damage amounts are estimated. |
| July 2025 | Flash Flood | Carrizozo | - | Emergency Management reported 6 inches of moving water over U.S. Highway 54 south of Carrizozo. |
| July 2021 | Flash Flood | Carrizozo | - | The Carrizozo airport measured 3.95 inches of rain in a short period of time which resulted in flash flooding in the area. Extent of damages is unknown. |
| July 2021 | Hail | Carrizozo | - | An observer reported one inch hail from a severe thunderstorm near Carrizozo. |
| June 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Carrizozo | - | Severe thunderstorm winds up to 63 mph were measured around Carrizozo. |
| July 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Carrizozo | - | The White Sands mesonet site at Phillips Hills recorded a 77 mph wind gust from a storm that rapidly intensified over the site after interacting with a gust front. |
| June 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Carrizozo | - | Thunderstorm winds which damaged several roofs and signs in Carrizozo were followed with golf ball-size hail that dimpled vehicles and tattered trees and gardens in Capitan. |
Newspapers printed here
5,724 digitised pages2 papers published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 593 issues, 5,724 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
| Newspaper | Published |
|---|---|
| Carrizozo Outlook | 1910 to 1945 |
| Carrizozo News | 1908 to 192? |
What the paper printed
12,022 wordsFront pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 8 issues spread across its run from 1908 to 1915, 12,022 words in total. Each is reproduced on its own page, exactly as the recogniser returned it.
These pages read less well than anything else here, and the number is worth stating: about three words in four come through cleanly, against nine in ten for the building records. An 1896 broadsheet sets eight-point type in seven columns on microfilm, which is the hardest thing in this archive to read by machine. We tested our own recognisers against the Library's and they were not better, so the Library's text is what appears, with the wholly unreadable columns removed. Read it as a guide to what the paper covered, and follow the link to the scan before quoting anything.
| Issue | Paper | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1908-06-12 | Carrizozo News | 510 words |
| 1908-07-31 | Carrizozo News | 417 words |
| 1908-09-11 | Carrizozo News | 1,274 words |
| 1908-10-23 | Carrizozo News | 434 words |
| 1908-12-04 | Carrizozo News | 1,238 words |
| 1915-03-19 | Carrizozo Outlook | 2,912 words |
| 1915-05-28 | Carrizozo Outlook | 2,532 words |
| 1915-11-05 | Carrizozo Outlook | 2,705 words |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polly | 6.3 miles | 14 | |
| Robsart | 6.9 miles | 14 | |
| Manchester (historical) | 8.1 miles | 14 | |
| Vera Cruz (historical) | 9.6 miles | 15 | |
| White Oaks | 10.4 miles | 15 | |
| Nogal | 10.7 miles | 15 | |
| Coyote | 12.1 miles | 12 | |
| Lovelace | 12.3 miles | 12 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Carrizozo | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1045140 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 918425. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.







