A History of Lincoln County Post Offices
Chronological Index
By C. W. Barnum
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 A History of Lincoln County Post Offices
The Postmasters and Historians of Lincoln County. 
 The National Association of Postmasters of the United States
The New Mexico Chapter of NAPUS
The Lincoln County Chapter of NAPUS
The Postmasters and Employees of Lincoln County
The Volunteers named herein who contributed to this history
The Ruidoso Printing Company, Ruidoso New Mexico, 88345
Presented by permission of the Lincoln County Postmasters and authors. 

A History of Lincoln County Post Offices
Folklore and Tales about People and Postmasters
in early Southeastern New Mexico

This Historical reference Work Was Issued in 
The Golden Anniversary Year of New Mexico's Statehood--1962.

History of Lincoln County Post Offices
(This taken from the 1913 Lincoln County, New Mexico Year Book published at Carrizozo, New Mexico by the late John A. Haley.)

Lincoln County

Lincoln County was created by an act of the Territorial Legislature in 1869, and was not, therefore, one of the original nine counties in the organization of the territory after it had been acquired from Mexico. It was one of the first created, however, after the organization of the Territory, and at the same time the largest. Soon after its organization the county seat was established at Lincoln, then known as the Bonito Plaza. There the seat of the government remained until 1909, at which time the county seat was changed to Carrizozo, where all courts have since been held and where a new court house and jail have been completed. 
Originally Lincoln County covered all the southeastern part of the Territory--about on-fifth of its total area. Three entire counties--Chaves, Eddy and Roosevelt--have been carved out of its former territory, and four other counties--Curry, Guadalupe, Otero and Torrance--contain a portion of its first area.
Lincoln County now occupies a position a little south and east of the south center of New Mexico, and is bounded as follows:

On the north by Torrance and Guadalupe counties. on the east by Chaves County, on the south by Chaves and Otero Counties and o the west by Socorro County. 

It has an area of 4,659 square miles, approximately 3,000,000 acres, of about 1,250,000 acres are subject to homestead entry. A considerable portion of its area is classed as mineral land and more than half a million acres lie in the Lincoln National forest, which covers the central part of the county--its mountain ranges. Lands may be homesteaded in the reserve, when shown to be agricultural, and many settlers now reside within in its boundaries. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS... 
Due to the sparsely settled communities in our county all activities centered around the small post offices. In order to pass this information on to future generations, the county organizations of the New Mexico Chapter of the National Association of postmasters of the United States, began a program toward that end.
The first sep was obtaining the authentic records from the Post Office Department in Washington, D.C., on the county offices, names , dates, and appointments of postmasters. This covered the first post office in 1873 through 1939. From 1930 to 1962, when the first book was published the information was supplied by the personnel in the 16 county offices then in existence. For this revised copy, additional records from the National Archives have been received. These records are from 1931 thorough 1971.
To the people who furnished the folklore and human interest stories the Lincoln County Postmasters are deeply grateful.
There may be variations and contradictions in dates and names due to the differences in recollection in our gracious contributors but to the best of our abilities this is historical and legendary in its entirety.

Transcribed by C. W. Barnum ©2005