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Red River, New Mexico

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1995. It stands in the Questa census division. It lies in ZIP code area 87558. It stands on Mallette Creek. The Survey maps it on the Red River quadrangle. 542 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 8,671 feet above sea level.

Research this city

Red River within Taos County

On record in Red River

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 7 records

Population over time

3 figures

Red River grew from 484 to 542 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
2000484
2010477-7 (-1%)
2020542+65 (+14%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 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.

Fires near this place

59 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 59 fires within 5 miles of Red River between 1992 and 2020, burning about 391 acres in total. 10 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
Recreation and ceremony40
Natural10
Missing data/not specified/undetermined4
Power generation/transmission/distribution3
Equipment and vehicle use1
Debris and open burning1

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
7 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCarson National ForestDOG ACF
7 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCarson National ForestMIDNIGHT AFC
20 September 2015Recreation and ceremony5.0 acresCarson National ForestTRAIL CANYON
19 September 2018Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreCarson National ForestVIGAS
14 September 1992Debris and open burning5.0 acresCarson National Forestnot named
5 August 2019Naturalunder an acreCimarron District20-20310163X
5 August 2005Naturalunder an acreCarson National ForestNORTHWEST
19 August 2001Naturalunder an acreNew Mexico State Forestry DivisionWILDOAK

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Taos County

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 78 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 78 workings within 5 miles of Red River: 40 prospects, 29 past producers, 4 occurrences, 3 producers. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Gold, Gold, Silver, Molybdenum, Silver, Gold. 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
Ajax Tunnel ProspectSilver, Gold, Copper, LeadProspect
Bitter Creek GroupUraniumProspect
Copper King MineMolybdenum, Copper, SilverPast Producer1867, 1955
Dyke Tunnel ProspectMolybdenum, Gold, CopperProspect
Enderman ProspectSilver, MolybdenumProspect
Esther ProspectLead, CopperProspect
Free Gold and Emerald ClaimsGold, Copper, SilverPast Producer1895
Golden GooseGold, CalciumProspect
GraniteCopper, MolybdenumPast Producer
Hornet GroupZinc, Lead, ManganesePast Producer

Every working recorded in Taos County

Storms near this place

9 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Red River in 9 storm reports between 1999 and 2025: 5 flash flood, 2 hail, 1 lightning, 1 debris flow. The reports record 1 injury. 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
September 1999LightningRed River1 hurtA 40 year North Carolina man hiking on Wheeler Peak fell 100 feet after being struck by lightning.
July 2025Debris FlowRed River$50,000Monsoon rains resulted in a mudslide along NM Highway 38 at mile marker 9 approximately 3 miles west of Red River. Both lanes were closed with no estimated time of return to service. Rainfall over a period of time this summer resulting in a gradual loosening of the hillside is the likely culprit of this mudslide. Damage cost is an estimate of cleanup.
July 2015Flash FloodRed River$25,000Heavy rain caused a mudslide along NM 38, causing it to close for 2 hours. The rain also caused a rockslide to close all but one lane of County Road 578.
July 2015Flash FloodRed River$5,000Fire marshal reported a tremendous sudden burst of torrential rainfall. A fast flowing mudslide surged over highway 38 between mile markers 8 and 9. A video of the event was posted to FB.
May 2021HailRed River-A member of the public in Red River reported penny size hail from a strong thunderstorm.
July 2018Flash FloodRed River-NM-38 closed due to mud slide over the roadway.
August 2018HailRed River-Hail up to the size of quarters at Bobcat Pass.
August 2017Flash FloodRed River-A mudslide closed state road 38 two miles west of Red River.
July 2017Flash FloodRed River-Large mudslide over state highway 138 at mile marker 9. Large boulders covered the highway. Road closed for nearly four hours.

Every storm recorded in Taos County

Newspapers printed here

566 digitised pages

1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 122 issues, 566 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
Red River Prospector1900 to 190?

What the paper printed

4,458 words

Front pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 4 issues all from 1901, 4,458 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
1901-04-25Red River Prospector1,989 words
1901-05-30Red River Prospector601 words
1901-07-25Red River Prospector851 words
1901-12-26Red River Prospector1,017 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
Moly4.7 miles10
Midnight (historical)4.8 miles10
Anchor (historical)5.2 miles10
La Belle (historical)6.7 miles10
Taos Ski Valley8.1 miles10
Twining8.2 miles10
Questa10.0 miles9
El Rito10.7 miles9

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 Red RiverAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1428577The 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 910074. 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.