La Luz, New Mexico
| La Luz, New Mexico | |
|---|---|
| CDP | |
Our Lady of the Light Church
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 Location of La Luz, New Mexico |
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 La Luz, New Mexico
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| Coordinates: 32°58′35″N 105°56′44″W / 32.97639°N 105.94556°WCoordinates: 32°58′35″N 105°56′44″W / 32.97639°N 105.94556°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New Mexico |
| County | Otero |
| Area | |
| • Total | 10.7 sq mi (27.8 km2) |
| • Land | 10.7 sq mi (27.8 km2) |
| • Water | 0.0 sq mi (0.0 km2) |
| Elevation | 4,751 ft (1,448 m) |
| Population (2000) | |
| • Total | 1,615 |
| • Density | 150.7/sq mi (58.2/km2) |
| Time zone | Mountain (MST) (UTC-7) |
| • Summer (DST) | MDT (UTC-6) |
| ZIP code | 88337 |
| Area code(s) | Area code 575 |
| FIPS code | 35-38330 |
| GNIS feature ID | 0920624 |
La Luz is a census-designated place (CDP) in Otero County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 1,615 at the 2000 census. It is located immediately north of Alamogordo and lies in the eastern edge of the Tularosa Basin and on the western flank of the Sacramento Mountains. Until 1848, La Luz was a part of Mexico. The CDP gets its name from the Spanish word for "light."
La Luz is located at 32°58′35″N 105°56′44″W / 32.97639°N 105.94556°W (32.976378, -105.945497).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 10.7 square miles (28 km2), all of it land.
La Luz sits at the opening of La Luz Canyon Creek whose headwaters are high in the Sacramento Mountains. The waters of La Luz and Fresnal creeks are used by both the much larger city of Alamogordo just to the south of La Luz and by La Luz in a ditch or acequia system. The City of Alamogordo has constructed a large reservoir to the south of La Luz to impound these waters.
Native Americans lived in the area for thousand of years prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the late 16th Century. The Mescalero Apache homelands covered an area of south central New Mexico including the Sacramento Mountains and the Tularosa Basin. Today, the ancestral homelands of the Apache have been reduced to those lands contained in the Mescalero Apache Reservation approximately 30 miles northeast of La Luz. There is some dispute over the founding of La Luz. By some accounts it was founded by Franciscan friars as early as the early 18th Century and called Nuestra Señora De La Luz (Our Lady of the Light). Early maps of the area include this notation and La Luz Canyon may have served as an early pass over the Sacramento Mountains connecting with the Peñasco river which eventually flows into the Pecos River near present-day Artesia, New Mexico. The Sacramento Mountains reach a height of 9,000 feet.
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Wikipedia