The historic and storied Fort Wingate, a former military outpost east of Gallup, New Mexico, along the Route 66 corridor, has been placed on the market for $11 million, according to several media outlets.
The New York Post, which initially broke the story, reported:
The potential buyer would be getting an original trading post with Fort Wingate, which spans over 7,000 square feet and includes a café, a post office and even a gas station. It also comes with a massive parking lot that currently houses over 80 RVs as well as 27 rental homes, all of which are “100 percent occupied,” according to the listing.
Mark Price of Realty One Group Concierge, who is representing the listing, told The Post that the café and gas station stopped operating once the town was listed for sale due to logistics. […]
“It’s been in the family since 1946,” Price revealed. “The current owner has lived there his entire life. He has never been outside the lines of the town and the family now wants to spend the rest of time traveling.”
“With all the current rentals and commercial operations in the town, the owner has been managing the town for decades,” Price explained. “He is the fire chief, the police and the landlord. It’s time to pass on the baton.”
Yahoo! News reported:
Abandoned in the early 1900s, Fort Wingate was subsequently added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and officially shuttered in 1993. […]
There also are hundreds of ruins created by the native Navajo Nation and Zuni tribes, along with parade grounds, a circa-1883 adobe clubhouse, barracks, officers’ quarters from the early 1900s and a military cemetery. Historic artifacts — such as bullets, coins and even an old baseball mitt left behind when the military base was decommissioned — are included as part of the sale as well.
Stars and Stripes reported:
Four years after the ill-fated 1864 relocation of the Navajo to the Bosque Redondo Reservation in a 400-mile journey called the Long Walk, the U.S. government allowed them to return and established the base, the NPS webpage says.
The soldiers there policed the reservation, and Navajo scouts operating out of the installation helped the military fight the Apaches, some of whom were incarcerated at the post. […]
In the 1870s and 1890s, Black soldiers of the 9th Cavalry and 25th Infantry Regiment, known as Buffalo Soldiers, were stationed at Fort Wingate.
Also in the late 19th century, it was home to two future generals.
Douglas MacArthur lived there as an infant when his father was an infantry commander there in the 1880s. A decade later, it was home to John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, who would go on to command the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe in World War I. […]
It stored munitions during the world wars and became for a time the largest such facility in the world after 1918, the New Mexico Geological Society said in a published history from the 1960s.
It was also where the first Navajo code talkers reported for service with the U.S. Marines during World War II.
Fort Wingate’s Wikipedia page contains an extensive timeline of the site.
There’s a lot of hope someone will purchase the site to be used for movie sets. Given New Mexico’s booming film industry, that’s not just wishful thinking.
(Hat tip to Brian Gregory; entrance to Fort Wingate in New Mexico in 2011 by Northland Pioneer College via Flickr)
The countless munition/ordnance bunkers that are remaining there just might become a useful ‘good thing’ perk for the future prospective buyer.