Mescalero

Mescalero or Mescalero Apache is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation in southcentral New Mexico. In the nineteenth century, the Mescalero opened their reservation to other Apache bands, such as the Mimbreno and the Chiricahua who had been imprisoned in Florida, and the Lipan Apache.

Reservation

Originally established on May 27, 1873, by Executive Order of President Ulysses S. Grant, the reservation was first located near Fort Stanton. The present reservation was established in 1883. It has a land area of 1,862.463 km² (719.101 sq mi), almost entirely in Otero County. The 463,000 acre reservation lies on the eastern flank of the Sacramento Mountains and borders the Lincoln National Forest. A small unpopulated section is in Lincoln County just southwest of the city of Ruidoso. U.S. Route 70 is the major highway through the reservation.

Ranching and tourism are major sources of income for the tribe. The mountains and foothills are forested with pines; resource and commercial development is managed carefully by the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council. The Mescalero Apache developed a cultural center near the tribal headquarters on U.S. Route 70 in the reservation's largest community of Mescalero. On display, is important historical information and artifacts of the tribe. The tribe has another, larger museum on the western flank of the Sacramento Mountains in Dog Canyon, south of Alamogordo.