Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Tortugas, NM

Tortugas, also known as Tortugas Pueblo, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Doña Ana County, just south of Las Cruces.

The 2020 census counted 579 residents in the Tortugas CDP.

Tortugas was founded in 1852 on land granted to tribal members of the Piro, Manso, and Tiwa peoples in the Las Cruces area.

The community originally consisted of two Native villages, the Pueblo of Guadalupe and the Pueblo of San Juan de Guadalupe.

Many Tortugas residents are descendants of Piro, Manso, and Tiwa people, including Tiwa and Piro families who moved south after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, and its population also draws on Jumano, Suma, Apache, Concho, Rarámuri, and Ysleta del Sur ancestry.

Tortugas is not a federally recognized tribe, but it has maintained its Native government and traditions for more than 170 years under a traditional leader known as a cacique.

The village takes its name, Spanish for 'turtles,' from the turtles once found in a nearby oxbow of the Rio Grande.

Tortugas lies just south of New Mexico State University and Interstate 10, at an elevation of about 3,904 feet.

Tortugas is famous for the Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe, held every December 10-12 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.

The fiesta's centerpiece is a roughly four-mile pilgrimage up Tortugas Mountain, also called 'A' Mountain, on December 11, where Mass is celebrated at the summit and pilgrims descend by firelight at sunset.