Romero

Romero is on U.S. Highway 54 eight miles from the New Mexico border in southwestern Hartley County. Its site, between the south branch of Punta de Agua and Minnesota Creek, was frequented by ciboleros and Comancheros throughout much of the nineteenth century. In 187677 Eugenio Romero, a relative of Casimero Romero and member of his band of New Mexican pastores , established his home at this site and named it Romero Springs. The town of Romero grew in the early 1900s when the Rock Island railroad made it into a shipping point for area ranchers, yet it was never very large. In 1940 Romero had one store and a population of forty. By 1984 the town was without a post office or business, and the population had dwindled to twenty-five; it was still twenty-five in 1990.