Historical Marker

Mills Canyon

The site of one of New Mexico’s most spectacular horticultural enterprises, the Orchard Ranch, established by Melvin W. Mills of Springer and notable for its skillfully engineered irrigation system. The ranch cultivated 12 miles of land along the Canadian River. Vegetable gardens and several thousand fruit trees flourished in the 1880s and later. A destructive flood wiped out orchards, irrigation system, buildings, and other improvements in 1904. They were never replaced.