San Patricio is a very small community in Lincoln 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 ...

. It is located on the Rio Ruidoso and U.S. Highway 70, between the communities of Hondo and Glencoe. It is just east of the

Lincoln National Forest Lincoln National Forest is a unit of the U.S. Forest Service located in southern New Mexico. The Lincoln National Forest covers an extensive 1.1 million acres in southeastern New Mexico. Established by Presidential Proclamation in 1902 as the Li ...

. The community is the site of San Patricio Retreat Center, a

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

spirituality center recently purchased by the Diocese of

Las Cruces, New Mexico Las Cruces (; ; lit. 'the crosses') is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico and the county seat, seat of Doña Ana County, New Mexico, Doña Ana County. As of the 2020 United States ce ...

. The Hurd-LaRinconada Gallery, owned by artist Michael Hurd, is located here. The gallery displays original works of art by the Wyeth and Hurd families and there are guest houses on the ranch.

History

In the 1850s, Hispanic settlers moved to the area, which caused conflict with the native

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

. According to an interview with Frank Coe, these settlers lived in ''placitas'', or "adobe family compounds enclosed for defensive purposes." Some still survive in the 21st century. Historic documents collected by the New Mexico Department of Transportation note:

In his book ''Frontier Fighter,'' George Coe describes the late 1800s houses in San Patricio as being "built for defense with thick adobe walls and portholes on top." Robery Utley's book ''High Noon in Lincoln'' describes San Patricio in the 1870s as made up of "some 15 adobe buildings scattered along a single street."

In the following decades, European-American settlers began to move here as well. The town was estimated to have about 40 families in 1867. That year the first ''

acequia An acequia () or (, also known as síquia , all from ) is a community-operated watercourse used in Spain and former Spanish colonies in the Americas for irrigation. Acequias are found in parts of Spain, the Andes, northern Mexico, and what i ...

'' in the Hondo Valley was dug in San Patricio. Around 1870, the town was named Ruidoso after the nearby river. Several years later it was renamed after a Catholic church built here: ''La Iglesia de San Patricio.'' This church, also known as the San Patricio Catholic Church, was the first church in the area. It became an important cultural center for the residents. Similar churches of this type are found throughout the Hondo Valley. San Patricio was the site of a battle in the

Lincoln County War The Lincoln County War was an Old West conflict between rival factions which began in 1878 in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, the predecessor of the state of New Mexico, and continued until 1881. The feud became famous because of the p ...

. It was associated with

Billy the Kid Henry McCarty (September 17 or November 23, 1859July 14, 1881), alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who was linked to nine murders: four for which he was solely res ...

, who attended dances in town during the 1870s. In 1878, James Dolan and his allies, including the Rio Grande Posse, vandalized the town and stole and killed horses. By the 1920s, the population grew to 822. Artists Peter Hurd and his wife

Henriette Wyeth Henriette Wyeth Hurd (October 22, 1907 – April 3, 1997) was an American artist noted for her portraits and still life paintings. The eldest daughter of illustrator N.C. Wyeth, she studied painting with her father and brother Andrew Wyeth at th ...

moved to the area in the 1930s, starting a farm of 40 acres. They were the first among numerous artists to live in the area and eventually had a 2200-acre ranch. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the population declined. Postwar development followed highway construction, and businesses moved to follow the changing path of U.S. Route 70. In 1967, St. Jude's Church was built, consolidating the congregations of all nearby Catholic churches in the Hondo Valley.

Geography and infrastructure

The coordinates of San Patricio are (33.408976, -105.326928). The elevation is 5436 feet (1657 m). San Patricio is located near the confluence of Rio Ruidoso and Rio Bonito. Glencoe is to the west and Hondo to the east. After their confluence, the rivers become the Rio Hondo. The Catholic community in Glencoe attends St. Jude's Church in San Patricio. This church incorporated the bells from the historical Glencoe and Hondo Catholic churches, and San Patricio Church. U.S. Route 70 serves the town, which is a 16.5 mile drive from Sierra Blanca Regional Airport.

Economy

The community and region are known for growing

apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

s; the orchards were a major part of the economy until the mid-1900s. Other orchard fruits, like

peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and Agriculture, cultivated in China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and the glossy-skinned, non-fuzzy varieties called necta ...

es,

pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the Family (biology), family Rosaceae, bearing the Pome, po ...

s, and

cherries A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The name ...

, and more general agricultural products were also sold to truckers along with the apples. Floods in 1941 and 1965, and the threat of cold weather have been the main dangers to these orchards. Early businesses of San Patricio included a general store, a grocery shop, a bar, a pool hall, a post office, and a gas station. In the early 2000s, only the post office is still operating.

Education

San Patricio built its first school before 1880. The school district included 70 students in 1880 and 153 in 1920. The four-room elementary school closed in 1960 after the smaller school districts in the area consolidated to Hondo's elementary school.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Lincoln County, New Mexico Unincorporated communities in New Mexico