Dexter is a farm town, and proud of it. About a thousand people live here, a couple of miles from the Pecos River, surrounded by dairies, pecan orchards and alfalfa. Chaves County is one of the big dairy counties in the Southwest, and a lot of that milk comes from right around here.
It is the kind of place where the school is the center of town and people know whose truck that is. Roswell is 17 miles up the road when you need it.
Like most of the valley, Dexter grew up in the early 1900s after the railroad and the artesian wells opened the land to farming. It has stayed a farming community for more than a century, growing slowly and on purpose.
Fish, of all things. A federal fish hatchery opened here in the early 1930s to stock the Southwest with bass and catfish. Today it is the Southwestern Native Aquatic Resources and Recovery Center, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service facility dedicated to saving the region’s threatened and endangered fish.
Closer to home, Lake Van is where people fish, picnic and walk in the evening.
Modest in-town homes, manufactured homes on their own land, and farm and acreage properties. Prices run well below Roswell.
Buyers who want land, quiet and a lower payment, and who do not mind a short drive to Roswell for work and shopping. Many rural addresses here may qualify for zero-down USDA financing.
| School | Rating | Grades | Students/teacher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dexter Elementary School 400 West 1st, Dexter, NM 88230 | 5/10 | PK - 5 | 14:1 |
School data provided by Attom Data.