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The Mesalands Area Tucumcari, home of Mesalands Community College, was born out of a railroad construction camp in 1901 when the Rock Island Railroad was pushing a line toward the west coast. Merchants, gamblers, saloonkeepers, and dancehall girls from the rip-roaring cow town of Liberty dismantled their establishments and moved three miles south to take advantage of the payrolls of the hard-working, hard-playing railroad gangs. At first, the railroad camp was called Six-Shooter Siding. After Indian Territory was opened in Oklahoma, the mesalands area surrounding Tucumcari got an overflow of homesteaders who had arrived in Indian Territory too late to get land. By 1907, there were twenty small towns scattered about Tucumcari. But it was a hardscrabble life for a dryland farmer during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl Era. Most of the towns reverted to cow pastures. The area owes its life to a dam across the South Canadian River which was authorized in 1935 and completed in 1940, bringing irrigation from Conchas Lake and the Canadian River to some 45,000 to 60,000 acres of farmland around the Mesalands. As cow pastures were broken up and sold for irrigated farms, many of the ranchers were replaced by farmers.
The Campus Mesalands Community College is situated at 911 South Tenth Street in Tucumcari, New Mexico, approximately100 miles west of Amarillo, Texas, and 168 miles east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tucumcari, located in the eastern part of the state and surrounded by scenic mesas, is recognizable by its landmark, the 5,000-ft. butte known as Tucumcari Mountain. Interstate Highway 40 and U.S. Highway 54 converge in the city, making it a popular tourist site. The campus of Mesalands Community College is positioned on 23 acres, with room for future expansion. The main campus is comprised of five buildings, with three additional buildings located at other sites off the main campus.
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