Place

Kit Carson Museum

A man walks into a small adobe building — Visit the Kit Carson Museum near Cimarron, New Mexico.
Photo/NPS

Philmont Scout Ranch lies on part of a land grant given to Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda by the Mexican government in 1841. Mountain man Lucien Maxwell founded a colony on the grant on the Rayado River in 1848. A year later, he was joined at the settlement by frontiersman Kit Carson. Their ranch on the Rayado was visited by many traders traveling on the Santa Fe Trail.

In 1950 the Boy Scouts of America built an adobe museum at Rayado to serve as an interpretive area to portray its history and recount the exploits of Maxwell and Carson. It was named in honor of Kit Carson. Staff at the Kit Carson Museum dress in period clothing and demonstrate frontier skills and crafts like blacksmithing, cooking, shooting, and farming. Each room in the museum is outfitted with reproduction furniture and objects typical of New Mexico in the 1850s. The Rayado Trading Company, located at the museum, sells books, maps, reproduction tools and equipment, moccasins, and blankets.

(Text From: Museums - Philmont Scout Ranch)

Site Information

Location (Philmont Scouting Headquarters on Highway 21 in New Mexico)

The Kit Carson Museum is seven miles south of Philmont’s headquarters on New Mexico Highway 21. Summer hours are 8 AM to 5 PM daily. Admission is free. The museum is open only for special events during the rest of the year

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