- Location
- New Mexico
- Current protection
- Bureau of Land Management lands; Rockhound State Park
- Status
- BLM monument campaign; no National Park campaign
- Tier
- Tier 2 · National Monument
- In the book
- Not featured in Undiscovered America
Why should it be a National Park?
Around Deming in southern New Mexico, four desert ranges rise from the Chihuahuan Desert: the jagged Florida Mountains, the Cookes Range, the Good Sight Mountains, and the Tres Hermanas near the Mexican border, about 245,000 acres of peaks with cultural sites that still matter to tribes and pueblos today.
The Florida Mountains alone would be a landmark anywhere else. Next door, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks shows what protection can do for a small desert town.
The history of National Park Campaigns
On December 6, 2023, Luna County commissioners, Deming's mayor, and a coalition of hunters, business owners, and conservationists launched the campaign for a 245,000-acre Mimbres Peaks National Monument, modeled on the 2014 Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument next door. Ranchers opposed it as a threat to grazing, and no designation came.
- Distinct National Park attempts
- 0
- Other designation attempts
- 1 (2023 to present monument campaign)
Sources
- Mimbres Peaks campaign press release (December 6, 2023)
- KRWG (2023)
- Desert Exposure (2023)
- 1965
Rockhound State Park is established in the Florida Mountains.
- May 21, 2014
Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument is proclaimed in neighboring Doña Ana County.
- December 6, 2023
The Mimbres Peaks campaign launches at Rockhound State Park.
- January 2024
Ranchers voice opposition over grazing.