Orogrande is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Otero County,

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 ...

, United States, located in the Jarilla Mountains of the Tularosa Basin on U.S. 54 between

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

and

Alamogordo Alamogordo () is a city in and the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains (New Mexico), Sac ...

. The community had a population of 52 in the 2010 census.

History

Originally a mining town named Jarilla Junction due to its proximity to the Jarilla Mountains, established in 1905, the town was renamed Orogrande (Spanish for ''big gold'') in 1906 and is not far from similar mining towns (now completely abandoned

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

s) named Brice and Ohaysi. The population soared to approximately 2000 as the result of a gold rush that occurred in 1905, but quickly collapsed almost to the point of depopulation when the gold deposits proved much less abundant than expected. There are still numerous abandoned mines in the area which fall under the jurisdiction of the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

. Other land around Orogrande is part of a military reservation under the control of

Fort Bliss Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Established in 1848, the fort was renamed in 1854 to honor William Wallace Smith Bliss, Bvt.Lieut.Colonel William W.S. Bliss (1815–1853 ...

. The town holds the record high temperature in New Mexico, at .

Geography

Climate

Demographics

Education

It is zoned to Alamogordo Public Schools. Yucca Elementary School is the zoned elementary school, and Mountain View Middle School is the zoned middle school. Alamogordo High School is the district's comprehensive high school. On July 1, 1959 Orogrande became a part of the Alamogordo school district. At that time elementary students went to school in Orogrande while high school students attended school in Alamogordo. In July 1959 the school district closed the Orogrande school as it felt all students could come to Alamogordo and the district could save money.
Clipping
from

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References

External links

Orogrande and the Jarilla Mountains
Unincorporated communities in Otero County, New Mexico Unincorporated communities in New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub