Formed February 28, 1917 (27th county)
De Baca County (1,697), Fort Sumner (884)
The tan brick Colonial Revival facility is located on Avenue C at 6th Street. United States Highway 60 is one block south of the site. This is a 1930 courthouse designed by Kerr & Walsh. The building was enlarged in 1985. A military gun sits on the grounds. The county was established on February 28, 1917 from parts of Chaves and Guadalupe counties as the 27th county with Fort Sumner as the only county seat. Governor Ezequiel C. de Baca provided the source for the county’s name. The military post Fort Sumner, which was named for Colonel Edmond Vose Sumner, provided the county seat its name.
De Baca County government consists of a manager, a sheriff, a treasurer, an attorney, an assessor, and a clerk (executive). It has 3 Commissioners (legislative.) One District Court Judge serves De Baca, Harding, and Quay counties (judicial.) De Baca County is in eastern New Mexico. Albuquerque, New Mexico is northwest and Roswell, New Mexico is south of the location. The Pecos River runs from the north to the south in the county. The county center is 19.9 miles Southwest of Fort Sumner. The county is surrounded clockwise by Guadalupe, Quay, Roosevelt, Chaves, and Lincoln counties.
The area of the county is 2325 square miles. It is 25 out of 33 in the state. It ranks 32 out of 33 in population in the state. It has a density of 0.7 persons per square mile making it 31 out of 33 in the state. De Baca County has 52.1% of its population in its incorporated areas. United States Highway 60 crosses east to west from Roosevelt County to Guadalupe County. United States Highway 84 is joined with United States Highway 60 from Roosevelt County, splits at Fort Sumner, and proceeds north into Guadalupe County. United States Highway 285 cuts the extreme southwest corner of the county from Lincoln County, west, to Chaves County, south. The county’s shape is a rectangle with a two-stack smokestack on top and two indents on the southwest and southeast corners. Fort Sumner is in the northeast quarter of the county. Fort Sumner is the county seat and the largest city since it is the only incorporated city. It is 52.1% of the county population. The county is pronounced DEE BA-KA.
