History of Farmington

Juan County to the Jicarilla Apache but they refused. As a result, the area was opened for settlement and a number of settlers moved into the region from Southern Colorado. The area was originally known as "Junction City" because of the access to the three rivers.

In 1901 the town was incorporated and named Farmington with a population of 548. By September 19, 1905, the railroad was finished connecting Farmington to Durango, Colorado expanding economic and settlement opportunities. It was unusual in that it was a standard gauge railroad that connected to the Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge lines of southwestern Colorado. The railroad converted the line to narrow gauge in 1923. The line was abandoned in 1968 and the line was dismantled to Durango in 1969. In addition, in the 1920s there was significant investment in natural gas and oil in the area, although actual production remained low until the 1950s. With construction of a developed road connecting Farmington to U.S. Route 66 and Albuquerque in the 1940s and the construction of the San Juan Basin Natural Gas Pipeline in 1953 – a venture led by Tom Bolack – the population expanded significantly. It expanded from 3,637 in 1950 to 35,000 in 1953 and the expansion continued after that. However, the significant connection to the energy industry made the economics of the town largely vulnerable to international market fluctuations during the 1970s energy crisis and resulted in some economic diversification.

In 1967, as part of a joint U.S. Government-El Paso Electric operation, an underground nuclear detonation occurred 50 miles (80 km) east of Farmington and about 25 miles (40 km) south of Dulce, New Mexico in present day Carson National Forest. This pilot project of Operation Plowshare, codenamed Project Gasbuggy, was an attempt to fracture a large volume of underground bedrock to make more natural gas available for extraction by gas wells.