Historical Marker

La Luz

Historical marker location:
US 54/70, La Luz, New Mexico
( At pullout at Alamo Street, the turn off to La Luz north of Alamogordo)

In 1719, Spanish Franciscan missionaries built a chapel here dedicated to Nuestra Senora de la Luz, Our Lady of Light. The naming of the village is also attributed to the will o’wisp light in the canyon, a perpetually burning lamp in an elderly woman’s home and a signal fire left by the male settlers, which when seen by the female settlers exclaimed, “La luz! Alla esta la luz!, The light, there is the light!” Settlement of the village did not begin until around 1860, when settlers arrived from other villages devastated by floods on the Rio Grande.