Mountainair is in
Torrance County region, and in the
Central New Mexico. To find Mountainair, head southeast of
Albuquerque between Socorro and Moriarty along US Highway 60.
The population estimate for July 1, 1998 was 1,282, an increase of 356 since 1990.
Sometime around 1900, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF) was putting together a "cut-off" at Belen, New Mexico, for routing freight trains either east or west. A newspaper man from Winfield Kansas, John W. Corbett, learned that the easterly tracks would likely pass through Abo Pass in New Mexico. Therefore, he and a friend, Colonel E. C. Manning, decided to locate a townsite at the top of the Pass. The cool summer breezes off the Pass resulted in naming their new community, "Mountainair".
