Organ Mountain Books

Organ Mountain Books anchors the revitalized downtown district of Las Cruces, New Mexico's second-largest city and home to New Mexico State University. The store draws its name from the jagged Organ Mountains that rise dramatically east of the city, visible from the reading patio where customers sip coffee and watch the light shift across the desert peaks. Founded in 2013 by a pair of NMSU professors, one in English and the other in border studies, the store reflects Las Cruces's dual identity as a college town and a borderlands community deeply connected to Mexico. The bilingual section is comprehensive, with literature in Spanish and English side by side, and the border studies collection covers everything from immigration policy to transborder art movements. The agriculture section honors the Mesilla Valley's pecan orchards and chile fields, with practical guides alongside cultural histories of farming in the arid Southwest. Poetry readings on the patio, with the Organ Mountains as a backdrop, have become a cherished community tradition.