According to a local Ruidoso Downs historian, early on Hispanos settlers called the area "San Juanito".

The settlers began arriving in the early in the late 1840s, and introduced rodeo and horse racing to the area.

Originally the area had scattered farms and ranches, with the Dowlin Mill constructed in 1868.

[6] By around 1907 the road between Roswell and Alamogordo, which passed through the area, was still primitive, though it was improved in the 1920s through the Federal Aid Project.

[6] In 1946 the Ruidoso News was founded and the airport opened, and two years later radio arrived.

New Mexico State Road 48 departs US 70 just west of the city limits, leading north 22 miles (35 km) to Capitan.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 3.8 square miles (9.8 km2), all of it recorded as land.