Fort Sumner, New Mexico
7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1979. It stands in the East De Baca census division. It lies in ZIP code area 88119. It stands on Truchas Creek. The Survey maps it on the Fort Sumner East quadrangle. 889 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 4,032 feet above sea level.
On record in Fort Sumner
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 4 records
De Baca County Courthouselisted 1987
Fort Sumner Cemetery Wall and Entrylisted 2008
Fort Sumner Community Houselisted 2003
Fort Sumner Railroad Bridgelisted 1979
Population over time
2 figuresFort Sumner fell from 1,031 to 889 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 | 1,031 | |
| 2020 | 889 | -142 (-14%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 7 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.
- 1954 USGS Fort Sumner quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Fort Sumner quadrangle1:250000
- 1968 USGS Fort Sumner East quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1979 USGS Fort Sumner quadrangle1:100000
Photographs
8 of 9 photographs shown, 1935 to 1943Taken 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.
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Delano, Jack, 1935. Library of Congress
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Every photograph of De Baca County
Fires near this place
28 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 28 fires within 5 miles of Fort Sumner between 1993 and 2020, burning about 4,536 acres in total. 7 started naturally. 1 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 | 11 |
| Natural | 7 |
| Debris and open burning | 3 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 3 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 2 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 July 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | not named |
| 13 July 2011 | Natural | 3.0 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | CACTUS |
| 11 July 2011 | Natural | 2.0 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | RED MILL |
| 3 June 2006 | Natural | 25 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | not named |
| 27 June 1994 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.5 acres | New Mexico State Forestry Division | JACOB |
| 25 June 2016 | Natural | 4.0 acres | Capitan District | WILTON-VAUGHN |
| 22 June 2018 | Railroad operations and maintenance | 1.0 acres | Capitan District | BLACK BRIDGE |
| 6 May 2016 | Natural | 9.0 acres | Las Vegas District | JUAN DIOS |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
10 of 15 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 15 workings within 5 miles of Fort Sumner: 13 past producers, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cortez Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Fort Sumner Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Steele Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | 1992 | |
| Unnamed Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unnamed Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unnamed Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unnamed Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unnamed Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unnamed Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unnamed Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer |
Storms near this place
2 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fort Sumner in 2 storm reports in 1993: 2 tornado. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 1993 | Tornado (F1) | Fort Sumner | $50,000 | A tornado moved across Sumner Lake, hitting the Alamo Boat Club Deck. The tornado damaged and flipped over two pontoon boats, stripped the roof from one cabin, damaged roofs of five other cabins and broke several power poles and television antennas. |
| May 1993 | Tornado (F0) | Fort Sumner | - | A tornado touched down briefly in open country between Fort Sumner and Vaughn. |
Newspapers printed here
334 digitised pages1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 52 issues, 334 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 |
|---|---|
| The Fort Sumner Review | 190? to 1947 |
What the paper printed
3,783 wordsFront pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 2 issues spread across its run from 1909 to 1911, 3,783 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 1909-07-17 | The Fort Sumner Review | 690 words |
| 1911-12-16 | The Fort Sumner Review | 3,093 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agudo | 5.5 miles | 7 | |
| La Lande | 6.1 miles | 7 | |
| Ricardo (historical) | 9.3 miles | 7 | |
| Guadalupe | 11.0 miles | 7 | |
| Salado | 11.9 miles | 7 | |
| Lake Sumner | 12.5 miles | 7 | |
| Taiban | 12.7 miles | 7 | |
| Evanola | 13.7 miles | 7 |
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 Fort Sumner | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2683042 | 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 923600. 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.



