State Road 143 (NM 143) is a , paved, two-lane

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

Luna County Luna County is a List of counties in New Mexico, county located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the population was 25,095. Its county seat is Deming, New Mexico, Deming. This county abuts the M ...

in the U.S. state of

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

. NM 143's northern terminus is east of Deming at the road's junction with NM 549. The road's southern terminus is at the entrance to the

Rockhound State Park Rockhound State Park is a state park of New Mexico, United States, located southeast of Deming. It is named for the abundance of minerals in the area, and visitors can search for quartz crystals, geodes, jasper, perlite, and many other minerals ...

. NM 143 is also known as Stirrup Road.

Route description

NM 143 begins at the junction with NM 549 in the unincorporated area east of the city of Deming. The road starts out by heading straight south through the arid desert, skirting the Little Florida Mountains from the west, while the Dragon Ridge of the

Florida Mountains The Florida Mountains are a small long, mountain range in New Mexico. The mountains lie in southern Luna County about southeast of Deming, and north of the state of Chihuahua, Mexico; the range lies in the north of the Chihuahuan Desert regi ...

can be clearly seen to the south. After approximately the highway intersects former state road NM 141, an original access road to the

. Shortly after the junction, the highway turns southeast, and travels through an unincorporated sparsely populated community for approximately before turning east. NM 198 forks right at roughly mark, and NM 143 turns northeasterly before reaching the entrance of the

in the southern part of Little

History

After

was formed in 1966, a road was built connecting it to NM 11 south of Deming. At some point this road became known as NM 141. The road connecting US 80 to ranching communities southeast of Deming was known as Luna County Road B 026. On July 1, 1988 a road exchange agreement was signed between the

NMDOT The New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT; es, Departamento de Transporte de Nuevo México) is a state government organization which oversees transportation in State of New Mexico in the southwestern United States. The agency has four ma ...

and

which transferred the County Roads B 023 and B 026 to the state. The former county roads were broken up into several segments to avoid road concurrency, with the stretch between the former US 80 (which was redesignated as NM 549) and a three-way junction with NM 497 and NM 141 became known as NM 143. NM 141 was removed from the state control some time after 2000, and NM 497 was consolidated with NM 143 into a single road.

Major intersections

References

External links

*{{osmrelation, 1485228, New Mexico State Road 143 143 Transportation in Luna County, New Mexico

Route description

History

Major intersections

See also

References

External links