New Mexico Office of the State Historian : Guadalupe County

Guadalupe County - J. J. Bowden

Guadalupe County sits in east-central New Mexico, with Santa Rosa as its county seat. Guadalupe was named for Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico. Guadalupe County is believed to be the site where Coronado built, in 1540, the first bridge in New Mexico in order to cross the Pecos River as he searched for the Seven Cities of Cíbola. In the area, the name Guadalupe predates the formation of the county and earlier documents show an old road running by the Mesita de Guadalupe (Guadalupe Plain). When the county was created in 1891, its first seat was Puerto de Luna, but as Santa Rosa grew the seat was moved north. In 1903 following the creation of Roosevelt County, which honored the “Rough Rider” President Theodore Roosevelt, the territorial legislature renamed this county Leonard Wood, for a colonel in the First New Mexico Volunteer Calvary (the “Rough Riders”), but people disliked the name change, and Guadalupe became possibly the nation’s only county to lose its name then regain it.

The county seat Santa Rosa is on the Pecos River and is known as the “City of Natural Lakes.” It contains many spring fed lakes and fishing and scuba diving are popular recreational activities in the area.

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