Fort Sumner is the spring and fall home of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility.

The federal government closed the fort in 1868 and sold its buildings to Lucien Maxwell, a prominent New Mexico landowner, in 1870.

[8] Billy the Kid is buried in the old military cemetery in Fort Sumner,[9] as is Lucien Maxwell.

[10] In 1866, the U.S. government was holding thousands of Native American Indians at Fort Sumner after they were subdued by Kit Carson.

Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving saw a business opportunity and decided to sell beef to the United States Government so that the captive, displaced, and imprisoned Native Americans could be fed.

The airfield was reopened by the United States Army Air Forces as a training base during World War II.

Fort Sumner is located northeast of the center of De Baca County on the north side of the Pecos River.