On Saturday, May 13, Fort Stanton Historic Site will host a Mother’s Day celebration combining informal teatimes and an opera performance.
The Mother’s Day event will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be two informal teatimes with an opera performance happening between them. The informal teatimes will be held in the Commanding Officer’s Quarters building, while the opera performance will be in the chapel.
To attend the event, visitors will need to contact Fort Stanton, Inc., the FSHS Friends group. Attendance is limited to 20 seats per teatime. Tickets are $25. The site encourages those interested in participating to purchase tickets sooner than later, as same-day tickets will not be made available. Fort Stanton, Inc. can be reached at 575-354-0341.
Established in 1855, Fort Stanton may be one of the most intact 19th-century military forts in the country and is the best-preserved fort in New Mexico. Found just outside the historic town of Lincoln and surrounded by the Lincoln National Forest, the 240-acre site is best known for its roles in the Indian Wars and the Civil War.
However, over its 160-year history, Fort Stanton has also borne witness to westward expansion, the lawless days of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War, the tuberculosis epidemic that peaked in the 1920s, the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, and the internment of German sailors during World War II. Fort Stanton’s 12-building parade ground appears much as it did in the mid-1800s, making it easy to imagine military life in the Old West.
