The folksy-but-formidable Deming Luna Mimbres Museum houses impressive collections, from Mimbres pottery to historical photographs of impactful Chinese community members.
Deming Luna Mimbres Museum
Deming
At the Deming Luna Mimbres Museum, you’re likely to be greeted by an octogenarian volunteer eager to regale you with tales of the region’s history. Housed in the former National Guard Armory, built in 1916, the sprawling museum is down-to-earth folksy and charming, while the scale of its collections is downright impressive.
The 20,000-square-foot space boasts forty themed displays, including an extensive collection of Mimbres pottery, a sparkling array of gems and geodes, and a menagerie of dolls. Visitors can time travel back to Deming’s original Main Street and walk through an early-20th-century medical office, schoolhouse, and newspaper room.
The city of Deming, founded in 1881 at a major railroad junction, marked the completion of the second transcontinental railroad. Workers from all over, but primarily Mexico and China, arrived to finish the line. At the museum, a small wall of framed photographs includes images of the Chinese Gardens of the Mimbres Valley, where residents once farmed twenty-two acres of fruits and vegetables, and of a Chinese-influenced adobe watchtower built by the Liu family to overlook the gardens.
The museum alludes to a rumored tunnel system travelled by Chinese community members beneath the city of Deming. Though one of the lifelong local volunteers may be able to divulge more, in the end, it’s hard to know how much is “truth or fiction in 1880,” as one of the museum placards reads.
While in Deming, check out the nearby petroglyphs, the earliest record of the Mimbres people who first inhabited the area. Discover untold histories and mysteries of the little town once monikered the “Gateway to the West.”
