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History · Mosquero

Mosquero’s post office opened in 1908, and 67% of its homes were built before 1940

Its Register listing is the Harding County Courthouse. Below: maps from 1954 on and the census since 1930.

1908first post office
1on the National Register
67%homes built before 1940
Add an old photoShare a memory
Photo: jaygannett from La Veta, CO, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0
Quick answers

How Mosquero began

When was Mosquero founded?

1908

The Mosquero post office opened in 1908, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 401 in 19302020 census: 98118 years
Founding year: the first Mosquero post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Mosquero’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Mosquero are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Mosquero’s homes were built before 1938.Boom and bustPeaked at 742 in 1940; 98 people lived here in 2020.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Mosquero’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Mosquero’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Mosquero came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Mosquero.

Read it all →

The site was a water stop along the Dawson Railway, built in 1902 from Tucumcari to Dawson. The name in Spanish translates as "swarm of flies", reputedly from the flies that were drawn to carcasses of bison hunted by local native tribes. The village was founded in 1908 by Benjamin Brown, and a post office was established here in that year.

The community developed as a farming and stock-raising and shipping point, with a dry ice plant, using carbon dioxide from local wells drilled into the Bravo Dome carbon dioxide gas field, which lies beneath Harding and Union counties. The railroad, absorbed into the Southern Pacific, was removed in 1950 and the population dwindled after the dry ice plant was destroyed.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

People over time

Mosquero, census by census

020040060080019401960198020002020Peak: 742

Peaked at 742 in 1940; 98 people lived here in 2020.

10 censuses, 1930–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Mosquero’s Wikipedia page.

Timeline

Mosquero, 1908 to 1954

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1908Post officeThe Mosquero post office opens
  3. 1940CensusPopulation peaks at 742
  4. 1954On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Mosquero, decade by decade

Today2 recent
Mosquero Water Tower2008Mosquero Water TowerNMMap-doton-Mosquero2004NMMap-doton-Mosquero
On the map

Mosquero on the map, 1954 to 1973

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Mosquero. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Mosquero on the 1954 USGS mapMosquero on the 1973 USGS map1954Tucumcari sheet · 1:250,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Mosquero.

On the National Register

1 historic place in Mosquero

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

place listed
1
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
1
each building in a district counts
first listed
1987
Harding County Courthouse
Harding County Courthouse
Buildings

Architectural styles listings

Classical Revival1
All 1 listings
Harding County CourthouseBuilding · listed 1987

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Places that used to be

Places now gone

Mosquero’s post office has been open since 1908.

Gone or out of use
Mosquero Post Officepost office

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Mosquero’s history

What year was Mosquero founded?

The Mosquero post office opened in 1908, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

What is on the National Register in Mosquero?

One place: the Harding County Courthouse (listed 1987).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (2), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.