Approximately 12,000 years ago, the land within the Tularosa Basin featured large lakes, streams, grasslands, and Ice Age mammals.

[10] Multiple human footprints are stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by layers containing seeds of Ruppia cirrhosa that yield calibrated radiocarbon ages between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

[11][12] Initially, these estimates were questioned by other authors, who suggested that the dating could potentially be erroneus, due to the fact that Ruppia cirrhosa intakes carbon from the water in which it grows rather than the air, which may introduce systematic error making the seeds seem older than they actually are.

[14] Other tracks are known for extinct megafauna, including ground sloths (likely either Nothrotheriops or Paramylodon) and Columbian mammoths, which appear to be contemporaneous to human footprints.

Archaic people entered the Tularosa Basin about 4,000 years ago, after the dunes had stabilized, possibly attracted by a cereal grass called Indian ricegrass.

The Battle of Hembrillo Basin in 1880 was a military engagement between Victorio's warriors and the United States Army's 9th Cavalry Regiment of Buffalo Soldiers.

[22]: 6 In the 1880s, a brief period of heavy rainfall supported the return of lush grasslands in the Tularosa Basin which attracted the attention of goat, sheep, and cattle grazers, predominately from Texas.

[23] At the turn of the twentieth century, the discovery of oil, coal, silver, gold, and other precious mineral deposits inspired many settlers to cover the Tularosa Basin in mining claims.

Fall, a Senator from New Mexico—later appointed Secretary of the Interior—and the owner of a large ranch in Three Rivers northeast of the dune field, promoted four separate bills in Congress for a national park in the Tularosa Basin.

Stephen Mather, the director of the National Park Service, criticized the proposal as having "disjointed boundaries, lack of spectacular scenery, and questionable usage."

[22]: 72 [25]: 117 The visitor center and a nearby comfort station, three ranger residences, as well as three maintenance buildings were constructed of adobe bricks as a Works Progress Administration project starting in 1936 and completed in 1938.

The principal architects were Lyle E. Bennett and Robert W. Albers, who also designed NPS buildings together at Casa Grande and Bandelier national monuments.

[29] Bennett also designed the picnic table shelters at White Sands, the Painted Desert Inn at Petrified Forest, and buildings at Carlsbad Caverns and Mesa Verde national parks.

[32] Between 1969 and 1977, 95 oryx were released on the missile range and adjacent areas of the Tularosa Basin by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish for hunting purposes.

[37] U.S. Representative Steve Pearce declined to support the application, saying, "I would guarantee that if White Sands Monument receives this designation, that there will at some point be international pressures exerted that could stop military operations as we know them today.

[43] Heinrich consulted with monument officials, the National Park Service, White Sands Missile Range, the U.S. Army and Holloman Air Force Base before the bill was introduced in Congress.

[4][49] White Sands, during its period as a national monument, has been used as a filming location for scenes in several westerns, including Four Faces West (1948), Hang 'Em High (1968), The Hired Hand (1971), My Name Is Nobody (1973), Bite the Bullett (1975), and Young Guns II (1990).

The seas left behind gypsum (calcium sulfate), and subsequent tectonic activity lifted areas of the gypsum-rich seabed to form part of the San Andres and Sacramento Mountains.

Rain and snowmelt from the surrounding mountains and upwelling from deep groundwater within the basin periodically fill Lake Lucero with water containing dissolved gypsum.

Weathering and erosion eventually break the crystals into sand-size grains that are carried away by the prevailing winds from the southwest, forming the white dunes.

[69] The cane cholla and other cacti, as well as desert succulents like the soaptree yucca, are able to store water through the hot summers and dry winters, blooming in the spring.

Several species of animals have developed very specialized means of survival in this harsh environment, enabling them to thrive in a place with very little surface water and highly mineralized groundwater.

[71] The Apache pocket mouse, bleached earless lizard, sand-treader camel cricket, sand wolf spider, and moth species including Protogygia whitesandsensis and Givira delindae are among the white animals inhabiting the dunefield.

Humans may experience up to four hours of intense pain, while the equivalent of twelve ant stings is capable of killing a 4.4 lb (2 kg) rat.

The animals left fossil footprints as they walked the muddy shores of Lake Otero, their body weight compressing the wet clay and gypsum.

Though stone flakes from toolmaking, arrowheads, and spear points are found in surrounding areas, they are the artifacts of humans who lived after the Ice Age.

[81] In a study of exposed outcrops of Lake Otero in 2021, Bennett et al. reveal numerous human footprints dating to about 23,000 to 21,000 years ago which provide strong evidence of pre-Clovis occupation of the American continents.

They had powerful jaws, with a stronger bite than modern wolves, and probably hunted in packs, allowing them to target larger prey such as horses and bison.

Standing around 3 feet (one meter) tall and weighing up to 750 pounds (340 kg), saber-toothed cats had a bulky, muscular build that allowed them to subdue large prey, like sloths, bison, and young mammoths.

The Harlan's ground sloth dwarfed modern relatives, standing 10 feet (three meters) tall when upright and weighing over a ton (about 2,200–2,400 pounds or 1000–1090 kilograms).