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Mountainair, New Mexico

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1917 and the latest in 1986. It stands in the Mountainair-Encino census division. It lies in ZIP code area 87036. The Survey maps it on the Mountainair quadrangle. 884 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 6,519 feet above sea level.

Mountainair within Torrance County

On record in Mountainair

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

Population over time

3 figures

Mountainair fell from 1,116 to 884 between 2000 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.

YearPeople Change
20001,116
2010928-188 (-17%)
2020884-44 (-5%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 10 printed sheets

Matched 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.

Photographs

8 of 9 photographs shown, 1943

Taken 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.

Mountainair, New Mexico. A cultivated field along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico
Mountainair, New Mexico. A cultivated field along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Mountainair, New Mexico. Going through the town on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico. The surrounding area raises great quantities of red beans
Mountainair, New Mexico. Going through the town on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico. The surrounding area raises great quantities of red beans
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Mountainair, New Mexico. Countryside along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico
Mountainair, New Mexico. Countryside along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Mountainair (vicinity), New Mexico. Landscape along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad
Mountainair (vicinity), New Mexico. Landscape along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Mountainair, New Mexico. Going down the mountain on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico. Filling station and adobe houses on roadside
Mountainair, New Mexico. Going down the mountain on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico. Filling station and adobe houses on roadside
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress
Missions of San Buenaventura & San Isidro, New Mexico Highway 14, Mountainair vicinity, Mountainair, Torrance County, NM
Missions of San Buenaventura & San Isidro, New Mexico Highway 14, Mountainair vicinity, Mountainair, Torrance County, NM
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Mission San Gregorio de Abo, State Highway 513, Mountainair vicinity, Abo, Torrance County, NM
Mission San Gregorio de Abo, State Highway 513, Mountainair vicinity, Abo, Torrance County, NM
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Mountainair, New Mexico. A cultivated field along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico
Mountainair, New Mexico. A cultivated field along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between Vaughn and Belen, New Mexico
Delano, Jack, 1943. Library of Congress

Every photograph of Torrance County

Fires near this place

21 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 21 fires within 5 miles of Mountainair between 1993 and 2014, burning about 200 acres in total. 7 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/undetermined10
Natural7
Debris and open burning3
Equipment and vehicle use1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
26 September 1994Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresNew Mexico State Forestry DivisionSISNEROS
10 September 2007Naturalunder an acreNew Mexico State Forestry Divisionnot named
5 August 2003Debris and open burningunder an acreCibola National ForestROOSEVELT 404
24 August 1999Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreNew Mexico State Forestry DivisionPARDA
6 July 1993Missing data/not specified/undetermined5.0 acresNew Mexico State Forestry DivisionROMERO
28 July 1993Naturalunder an acreCibola National Forestnot named
18 July 1996Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreNew Mexico State Forestry DivisionLUCY
17 July 2005Natural1.0 acresNew Mexico State Forestry Divisionnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Torrance County

Mines and quarries near this place

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Mountainair: 4 unknowns. None of them still produces. 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 SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Materials PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown
Materials PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown
Materials PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown
Mountainair PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown

Every working recorded in Torrance County

Storms near this place

5 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Mountainair in 5 storm reports between 1999 and 2021: 3 hail, 1 funnel cloud, 1 thunderstorm wind. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2021Thunderstorm WindMountainair-A RAWS station near Mountainair measured a 61 mph wind gust associated with a decaying shower.
August 1999Funnel CloudMountainair-Brief, small funnel clouds reported through emergency coordinator.
July 2005HailMountainair-no account filed
June 2004HailMountainair-no account filed
August 2004HailMountainair-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Torrance County

Newspapers printed here

1,050 digitised pages

1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 217 issues, 1,050 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.

NewspaperPublished
The Mountainair Independent1916 to 1941

What the paper printed

11,618 words

Front pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 4 issues all from 1916, 11,618 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.

IssuePaper Length
1916-10-05The Mountainair Independent3,128 words
1916-10-26The Mountainair Independent3,122 words
1916-11-23The Mountainair Independent2,418 words
1916-12-14The Mountainair Independent2,950 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 PlaceDistance Sheets
Punta de Agua5.9 miles11
Broncho6.2 miles10
Deer Canyon6.2 miles8
La Cienega6.4 miles11
Abo6.6 miles8
Roundtop (historical)7.4 miles7
El Gato7.7 miles11
Los Chavez8.2 miles11

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 MountainairAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1950884The 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 892293. 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.