Wooten Spring Park Aims to be “Park First” on 45 Acres near High Rolls

A 19th-century settlement, a Tony Lama family trout farm, and a spring that watered steam engines — the land had a backstory before it had a business plan

In the works: a new public park and RV campground — complete with pickleball courts, a natural spring, fruit trees, and plans for future festivals.

A 45-acre property along U.S. 82 between Cloudcroft and High Rolls is being developed into what its founders call a park-first destination, with RV sites filling about half the land and the rest opened to the public through day passes.

Wooten Spring Park is the project of Justin Muñoz and Bryce Eaton. The team is targeting a summer 2027 opening, pending permits.

Muñoz said the goal is not a typical RV stop. “We’re a park first,” he said. The plan calls for roughly two miles of trails along a stream, a half-acre recreation pond, a tent camping area, an orchard, a welcome center, convenience retail, pickleball courts, and a music stage.

“Our vision is to have a place where people can come by RV and stay and enjoy amenities. But also a place where the public can stop in and go to our welcome center, to our gift shop, play on our pickleball courts, enjoy our orchard and our park, and potentially have live music one day.”

RV hookups will fill about half the property.

The setting drives the project. The parcel includes a mile of creek frontage, spring-fed water, flat usable acreage, and a border with the Lincoln National Forest. It sits about five minutes from Cloudcroft. “It’s a one-of-a-kind parcel,” Muñoz said.

An aerial view

The property was formerly the Mountain Park trout farm and was owned the Tony Lama family of El Paso, founders of the famous boot company.

The project takes its name from Wooten Spring, which once served as the last water stop for steam trains climbing the Sacramento Mountains to Cloudcroft. The spring still runs out of the mountainside. Muñoz said it is “beautiful pristine water” that “gushes right out of the side of the mountain.”

Wooten Spring itself was named for Benjamin Wooten, who purchased and developed the property with his wife in the 1800s, according to the developers. The surrounding settlement was once known as Wooten, New Mexico, and had its own post office before High Rolls did.

The partners spent roughly a year looking for the right site. They had been considering another property when this parcel came open.

“We had to move fast because there was a lot of interest,” said Eaton.

The developers said they plan to video record the project’s progress and share it publicly, inviting locals and travelers to follow along online.

According to Muñoz, “Technically, construction has begun, but the development hasn't started. We have been busy the last couple of months removing trash and over 9 structures, including 5 uninhabitable homes full of debris. We hauled off over 2 million pounds of trash and construction debris in 130 roll-off dumpsters so far.”

As planned, Wooten Spring Park will be both a new tourism business and a public gathering place tied to one of the older pieces of recorded history in the corridor, conveniently located between Cloudcroft and Alamogordo.

Follow the project on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wootenspringpark

And their website: https://www.wootenspringpark.com

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