Mountainair Jubilee

Trucks at the airstrip

On the Friday night of the 2026 Mountainair Jubilee, July 24, people drove out to the municipal airport and tailgated from their trucks. Children played catch with a football and king of the mountain on the sand dunes. A vendor sold t-shirts and inflatable toys. Mountainair Fire managed the fireworks. In 2024 the display went up at dark from the Mountainair High School football field, on the Saturday of a Jubilee held at the end of June.

The calendar has moved since then. The 2024 Jubilee fell on June 28 and 29, and the 2025 car show on June 28. In 2026, as Todd Brogowski wrote in the Mountainair Dispatch, the Jubilee “wandered far from July 4.” It also came during a hard stretch for the town. Mayor Pro Tem Gayle Jones had recently died, and her husband, Wayne, had been appointed to complete her term on the town council, pending formal approval at the council’s next regular meeting. Brogowski called the weekend “a celebratory counterpoint” to the town’s mourning.

Highway 60 and five planes

The parade runs on Highway 60 from Limit Avenue to Highway 55. Entries line up on Limit Avenue, and the 2024 schedule placed a wet zone along the way, run by the fire department. The 2024 parade started at 10:00 A.M., and the 2026 parade was set for the same hour on Saturday, July 25.

Before the parade began, pilots met at Mountainair Airport (M10). The New Mexico Pilots Association describes it as a packed dirt runway in good condition, 2,578 feet long with about 2,000 feet of “overrun area.” Pilots were asked to arrive between 8:30 and 9:00 to plan the flyover. Harvey W. Martens organized it. The association listed it as the Fifth Annual Mountainair Jubilee Parade Flyover and noted that it was not an association-sponsored event. During the parade, Harv Martens and four other local pilots flew overhead.

On the ground, children and a few adults grabbed candy thrown from the parade vehicles. Neighbors and friends who were usually busy with work found each other along the route. First responders marched as groups: Mountainair Police, Mountainair Fire, and the US Forest Service, which the Dispatch noted had lately been busy with wildfires caused by lightning. They shared the road with classic cars, a rig from Central New Mexico Electrical Cooperative, and other entries.

In 2024 and 2025, the cars also had a show of their own on Jubilee Saturday morning, at the Salinas Pueblo Missions headquarters at 105 South Ripley. The Friends of Salinas Pueblo Missions sponsored the 2024 show. The 2025 show ran from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and was free for spectators. A post on the Town of Mountainair’s official Facebook page urged people to bring the whole family: “Let’s make this the best car show yet.”

Root beer and rain at soundcheck

When the parade ends, the crowd moves to Chavez Memorial Park. The 2024 schedule listed food vendors, face painting, games, jumpers, a dunk tank, a water slide, music, and dancing. In 2026 vendors sold crafts and food, and a group of men held a root beer chugging contest. Three bouncy houses kept the children busy while families sat in the shade of a tent.

The dance has moved over the years as well. In 2024 it took place on the Friday night, from 8:00 P.M. until midnight, on Main Street in front of the historic Shaffer Hotel, with New Mexico’s Daniel Solis and B&X Sound. In 2026 it closed the weekend on Saturday evening with Sangre Joven, a ranchera, cumbia, and norteño band. Rain fell during the soundcheck, and Mayor Peter Nieto watched the sky with concern. By the end of the night the music carried through the streets, and people danced in the square in front of the Dr. Saul Community Center.

A town at the summit of Abó Pass

The town that holds the Jubilee was founded in the summer of 1903 by John Corbett, Colonel E. C. Manning, and E. S. Stover, whom the town’s history page calls a former U.S. Governor. The founding came with the railroad. Mountainair sits at the summit of Abó Pass, on the Belen cut-off, a route built partly to avoid the steep grades and delays over Raton and Glorietta passes. The town was named for its cool, fresh mountain breezes. It was the first incorporated town in the area, before Torrance was a county and before New Mexico became a state. Passengers first arrived in 1907 and kept coming through the 1960s. The line now carries mostly freight, and the depot is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Some residents still say their grandparents called part of the town Monte Alto, though the history page admits that documents backing these accounts are hard to find. The surrounding country is much older than the town. Abó, Quarai, and Gran Quivira, the ruins that make up Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, draw visitors from around the world.

In the early 1900s, plentiful rain made farming the center of the local economy. The population rose to nearly 5,000, and Mountainair became “The Pinto Bean Capital of the World,” home to the nation’s largest bean processing center. In its best season it shipped more than 750 train carloads of beans. A ten-year drought began in 1946, and farmers either turned to ranching or left. About 2,000 people live in Mountainair today, and the town’s visitor site reckons there are likely more cattle than people living around it.