Best Web Design in Las Cruces, NM (2026)

Web Design for Las Cruces, New Mexico

Las Cruces, New Mexico's second-largest city, spreads across the Mesilla Valley beneath the jagged, photogenic spires of the Organ Mountains. Its Spanish name, 'the crosses,' is tied to local legend of grave markers for travelers killed in the area before the town's 1849 founding. A green-chile and pecan-growing hub anchored by New Mexico State University, it also sits at the doorstep of White Sands Missile Range and Spaceport America, the launch site of Virgin Galactic.

AppWT works with Las Cruces, NM businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Las Cruces

Also known as. The City of the Crosses (English translation of 'Las Cruces'). Mountains of Opportunity (official city motto).

History. Las Cruces was laid out as a planned settlement in 1849, a year after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought the region into the United States, when Army officers surveyed the townsite. The name 'Las Cruces' (the crosses) is popularly linked to wooden crosses erected to mark travelers buried after a deadly attack near the future town. Neighboring Mesilla, just southwest, became a key crossroads; in April 1881 Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to hang in the Mesilla courthouse for the murder of Sheriff William Brady before his escape. New Mexico State University was founded in 1888 (as Las Cruces College), and Las Cruces incorporated as a town in 1907.

Local economy. New Mexico State University, the state's land-grant institution, is the city's largest employer and a driver of its growth. White Sands Missile Range and associated federal test facilities provide stable, high-paying government and defense jobs; the range was the test ground for the first atomic bomb. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spaceflight operations at nearby Spaceport America maintain corporate offices tied to the city. Agriculture remains central, with chile peppers, pecans, and cotton among Dona Ana County's most important crops.

Culture and community. Green and red chile define local cuisine, and the region is one of the country's leading chile and pecan producers. The Whole Enchilada Fiesta celebrates southern New Mexico traditions and once featured a record-setting flat enchilada over 30 feet in diameter, created by Roberto Estrada with about 75 gallons of red chile sauce. On New Year's Eve, the Las Cruces Chile Drop lowers a roughly 19-foot illuminated chile pepper from a crane, a nationally noted celebration. Historic Mesilla hosts folklorico dancing, mariachi music, and Mexican Independence and Cinco de Mayo celebrations on its Spanish colonial plaza.

What makes Las Cruces distinct. The 1990 Las Cruces bowling alley massacre, in which four people were killed, remains one of the state's most infamous unsolved crimes. Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman, commander of the first crewed flight around the Moon, kept a home and business in Las Cruces. Spaceport America near Las Cruces is billed as the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport, launching Virgin Galactic's suborbital flights.

Las Cruces Landmarks and Local Life

• The Organ Mountains - protected within Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, form the city's dramatic eastern backdrop
• New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum - a 47-acre living-history museum tracing 3,000 years of regional agriculture
• Historic Mesilla Plaza - with the courthouse-turned-shop where Billy the Kid was sentenced
• The New Mexico State University campus - anchoring the city's south side
• White Sands National Park lies nearby - a short drive northeast toward Alamogordo