Farmington (
Navajo: Tóta') is a city in
San Juan County in the U.S. state of
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
. As of the
2020 census, the city had a population of 46,624 people. Farmington (and surrounding San Juan County) makes up one of the four
metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in New Mexico.
Farmington is located at the junction of the
San Juan River, the
Animas River, and the
La Plata River, and is located on the
Colorado Plateau. Farmington is the largest city of San Juan County, one of the geographically largest counties in the United States covering . Farmington serves as the commercial hub for most of northwestern New Mexico and the
Four Corners region of four states. Farmington lies at or near the junction of several highways:
U.S. Highway 64,
New Mexico Highway 170,
New Mexico Highway 371, and
New Mexico Highway 516.
It is on the
Trails of the Ancients Byway, one of the designated
New Mexico Scenic Byways.
[Trail of the Ancients.](_blank)
New Mexico Tourism Department. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
The primary non-government industries of Farmington are the production of petroleum, natural gas, and coal and its function as a major retail hub. Outside of Farmington, the
Navajo Mine (coal), operated by the Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC), is used entirely for fuel for the nearby
Four Corners Generating Station to produce
electric power
Electric power is the rate of transfer of electrical energy within a electric circuit, circuit. Its SI unit is the watt, the general unit of power (physics), power, defined as one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with oth ...
.
History
The area that is now Farmington was settled by
Ancestral Pueblo people in the 7th Century. Ruins can be visited at nearby
Salmon Ruins and at the
Aztec Ruins.
When the Ancestral Puebloans left the area, the
Navajos,
Jicarilla Apaches, and
Utes moved into the area. A key part of the region was known in Navajo as ''Tóta which means "where three rivers meet".
Although Spanish and American mineral prospecting happened in the area, there were few permanent settlements. In 1868, the
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation (), also known as Navajoland, is an Indian reservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in ...
was created, taking up the western half of
San Juan County. Six years later, the U.S. government offered territory in the rest of San Juan County to the
Jicarilla Apache but they refused. As a result, the area was opened for settlement and a number of settlers moved into the region from Southern Colorado.
The area was originally known as "Junction City" because of the access to the three rivers.
In 1901 the town was incorporated and named Farmington with a population of 548.
By September 19, 1905, the railroad was finished connecting Farmington to
Durango, Colorado, expanding economic and settlement opportunities. It was unusual in that it was a
standard-gauge railway that connected to the
Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad narrow-gauge lines of southwestern Colorado. The railroad converted the line to narrow gauge in 1923. The line was abandoned in 1968 and dismantled to Durango in 1969. In addition, in the 1920s there was significant investment in natural gas and oil in the area, although actual production remained low until the 1950s.
On March 18, 1950, Farmington was the site of a mass
UFO sighting in which over half the town's population was reported to have seen large saucers in the sky flying at rapid speeds.
The population was expanding rapidly after the 1940s construction of a developed road connecting Farmington to
U.S. Route 66
U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) is one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The high ...
and
Albuquerque and the San Juan Basin Natural Gas Pipeline in 1953, led by
Tom Bolack.
However, the significant connection to the energy industry made the economics of the town largely vulnerable to international market fluctuations during the
1970s energy crisis
The 1970s energy crisis occurred when the Western world, particularly the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages as well as elevated prices. The two worst crises of this period wer ...
and resulted in some economic diversification.
In 1967, as part of a joint U.S. Government-
El Paso Electric operation, an underground nuclear detonation occurred east of Farmington and about south of
Dulce, New Mexico in present-day
Carson National Forest. This pilot project of
Operation Plowshare, code-named
Project Gasbuggy, was an attempt to fracture a large volume of underground bedrock to make more natural gas available for extraction by gas wells.
The people of Farmington have been the subject of several
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...
investigations, including the 2005 report, ''The Farmington Report: Civil Rights for Native Americans 30 Years Later''.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Farmington has a total area of , of which is land and is water.
Climate
Farmington has a
semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...
. Despite its altitude of , the city can experience hot summers and cold winters with low precipitation throughout the year. The average annual snowfall is .
Demographics
As of the census of 2010, there were 45,895 people and 17,548 housing units in Farmington. The racial makeup of the city was 62.8%
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
(including 52.4% White non-Hispanic), 1.0%
African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 22.2%
Native American, 0.6%
Asian, 0.1%
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
, and 4.2% from two or more races.
Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or
Latino of any race were 22.4% of the population.
There were 16,466 households, out of which 33.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49% were married couples living together, 13.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.1% were non-families. 21.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.7 and the average family size was 3.19.
Arts and culture
Farmington has been the home of the
Connie Mack World Series baseball tournament, played in August every year at Ricketts Park (capacity 5,072), since 1965 (except in 2020, when it was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
). Connie Mack league regular season play includes players age 16 to 18. The Connie Mack World Series consists of 10 or more teams from various regions around the United States, including Puerto Rico.
Farmington holds a riverfest once a year. Area rivers are celebrated with a festival of music, fine arts, food, entertainment, a 10K and 5K run and walk, riverside trail walks, and river raft rides.
Piñon Hills Golf Course, designed by Ken Dye, in Farmington is one of the United States' Top Municipal Golf Courses. Owned and operated by the City of Farmington, Pinon Hills has been ranked in the Top Municipal Golf Courses by Golfweek Magazine for several years.
Fishing, fly and reel, is a very popular activity in Farmington. Fishing is permitted on the San Juan River,
Navajo Lake, Lake Farmington, Morgan Lake, the Animas River, Jackson Lake and Cutter Dam.
Education
The
Farmington Municipal School District serves over 10,000 students in grades K-12 in 20 schools.
The high schools are
Farmington High School,
Piedra Vista High School,
Rocinante High School, and San Juan College High School. There are four middle schools, Heights, Hermosa, Mesa View and Tibbetts.
New Mexico School for the Deaf operates a preschool facility in Farmington.
Navajo Preparatory School
Navajo Preparatory School is a college preparatory school located in Farmington, New Mexico. The school is fully sanctioned by the Navajo Nation since 1991 when the previous Navajo Academy closed due to lack of funding. The campus is currently un ...
is a
Bureau of Indian Education
The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) is a division of the U.S. Department of the Interior under the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs that directs and manages education functions. Formerly known as the Office of Indian Education Programs ...
-affiliated tribal school.
There are six private schools, if Navajo Preparatory is counted as one.
[
] The
National Center for Education Statistics
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the principal federal agency responsible for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data on education in the United States. Established under , it operates within the Institute of Education S ...
counts Navajo Prep as public. Sacred Heart School, Farmington (K-8), of the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup, was established in 1910.
San Juan College is a public two-year college with - as of Fall 2021 - a per-semester headcount of almost 6,000 persons, and a full time equivalent (FTE) enrollment of just over 3,000.
Farmington Public Library moved into a new building in 2003 and holds about 200,000 items in its collection. There was a branch library in
Shiprock that is currently closed.
Infrastructure
Transportation
Air
* Farmington is served by
Four Corners Regional Airport.
Highways
*
U.S. Highway 64 is the major east–west highway through San Juan County and across Farmington.
*
New Mexico State Road 170 extends northward from U.S. Highway 64 to the Colorado state line.
*
New Mexico State Road 371 connects southward from
U.S. Highway 64 to
Interstate 40
Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west transcontinental Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the Southeastern United States, southeastern and Southwestern United States, southwestern portions of the United States. At a leng ...
. It passes almost exclusively through the Navajo Indian reservation, and passes through only a few small towns or villages (such as
Crownpoint and
Thoreau). It is also the primary means of accessing the
Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness area.
*
New Mexico State Road 516 is a southwest–northeast connector between Farmington and
U.S. Highway 550 in Aztec.
**
U.S. Highway 550 does not run through Farmington (nearby in
Bloomfield and
Aztec
The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...
), but is a commonly referenced arterial by Farmington as a means to connect with central New Mexico,
Interstate 25
Interstate 25 (I-25), also known as the Pan-American Freeway, is a major Interstate Highway in the western United States. It is primarily a north–south highway, serving as the main route through New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. I-25 st ...
, Albuquerque, and (via I-25) the capital city of
Santa Fe.
Intercity bus
*There is intercity bus service in Farmington, The Red Apple Transit.
*
North Central Regional Transit District provides bus service from
Chama, NM and
Dulce, NM.
*The
Navajo Transit System provides regional bus service to the
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation (), also known as Navajoland, is an Indian reservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in ...
. Farmington is served by Route 07a from
Newcomb, NM to
Fort Defiance, AZ and Route 07b from Newcomb, NM to
Shiprock, NM.
Utilities
Electricity
* The Farmington Electric Utility System (FEUS) is owned and operated by the City of Farmington, serving approximately 46,000 metered customers. Its service territory covers 1,718 square miles and encompasses the city, much of San Juan County, and a small portion of Rio Arriba County.
* As of June 2021, the City generates approximately 36% of its consumed power from its own gas-fired generation facilities, 17% from the
Navajo Dam hydroelectric facility, and the remainder purchased from third party generation resources.
* Aside from Navajo Lake (where generation facilities were established in 1988), a nominal amount of expansion of its owned generation facilities has been using renewable resources. Renewable energy is predominantly sourced from external third parties or via purchasing agreements with
net metered facilities in its service area.
Water and wastewater
* The city's water comes from Farmington Lake, which is sourced from and fed using pumps located on the Animas River. Water and wasterwater treatment facilities, operations, and management are all contracted by the city to Jacobs Engineering Solutions.
Solid waste
* The City contracts all solid waste operations to
Waste Management (of New Mexico) Inc., including general solid waste, recycling facilities and operations, and hazardous waste disposal. Disposal of City waste is done at the San Juan County Landfill, owned by the county and also operated by Waste Management of New Mexico.
Telecommunications
* Cable service (television and Internet) is provided by
Xfinity.
* Landline service (telephone and Internet) is provided by
CenturyLink (Lumens Technologies).
* Mobile service (telephone and Internet) is provided by all major carriers. As of October 2023, 5G cellular service is made available via T-mobile and other major cellular providers.
Politics
As of August 2022, Farmington had approximately 28,548 active registered voters. There were 24.4% unaffiliated with a party, 51.0% Republican, 22.2% Democratic, 1.2% Libertarian, and 1.2% various other parties. Like the rest of San Juan County, it is a politically conservative community surrounded by generally more liberal counties, and situated within an overall more liberal/left-leaning state.
Voting has historically strongly favored conservative ideals and candidates, although state and local government bonds and other tax-imposing initiatives are almost always approved by the electorate.
Notable people
*
Tom Bolack (1918–1998) — Governor and Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico; Mayor of Farmington; oilman; rancher
*
Mike Dunn (born 1985) — athlete,
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
pitcher
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, ...
for the
Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Division. Th ...
and the
Miami Marlins
*
Robert Fry (murderer) (born 1973), serial killer who killed three men and one woman
*
Larry Echo Hawk (born 1948) — former
Attorney General of Idaho, 10th
Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, and
general authority emeritus of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
*
Harris Hartz (born 1947) —
U.S. federal judge on the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
*
Charly Martin (born 1984) —
NFL player
*
Ralph Neely (born 1943) —
NFL offensive lineman for
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...
*
Alana Nichols (born 1983) — Paralympic gold medalist in
alpine skiing
Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel Ski binding, bindings, unlike other types of skiing (Cross-country skiing, cross-country, Telemark skiing, Telemark, or ski jumping) ...
and
wheelchair basketball
*
Onry Ozzborn (born 1979) — rapper and founding member of
Grayskul
*
Chevel Shepherd (born 2002) — singer and winner of the
15th season of
''The Voice''
*
Chase Silseth (born 2000) —
MLB pitcher for the
Los Angeles Angels
The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Greater Los Angeles area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League West, ...
*
Sleep
Sleep is a state of reduced mental and physical activity in which consciousness is altered and certain Sensory nervous system, sensory activity is inhibited. During sleep, there is a marked decrease in muscle activity and interactions with th ...
(born 1976) — rapper and member of
The Chicharones
*
Melanie Stansbury
Melanie Ann Stansbury (born January 31, 1979) is an American politician serving as the United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative from New Mexico's 1st congressional district since 2021 New Mexico's 1st congressional district sp ...
(born 1979) —
U.S. Representative, former state representative and scientist
*
Duane Ward (born 1964) — athlete,
MLB pitcher for
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Since 1989, the team has p ...
and
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Eas ...
*
Dale Whittington (1959–2003) — racing driver
*
Kenneth L. Worley (1948–1968) — U.S. Marine who received the
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest Awards and decorations of the United States Armed Forces, military decoration and is awarded to recognize American United States Army, soldiers, United States Navy, sailors, Un ...
See also
*
2023 Farmington, New Mexico shooting
References
External links
Official Website of the City of FarmingtonFarmington Chamber of CommerceFarmington Convention & Visitors Bureau
{{authority control
Cities in New Mexico
Cities in San Juan County, New Mexico
Populated places established in 1901