The best thing about Las Cruces is its nearness to a truly neat little place, the historic village of Mesilla, three miles southwest of Las Cruces via Hwy-28. Low-slung adobe buildings set around a shady central plaza include the landmark 1855 adobe church of San Albino, an old jail from which Billy the Kid escaped in 1880, a former Butterfield Stage station that’s now home to the biker-friendly El Patio Cantina, and the very popular La Posta (505/524-3524) restaurant.
Across Hwy-28 from the plaza, the Gadsden Museum (daily; $3; 505/526-6293) traces local history from pre-conquest to current times. It’s a private collection, pulled together over five generations of the same family; the folk art (dozens of hand-crafted retablos and santos) is wide-ranging and powerfully evocative of life in the harsh Southwest.
