Spanish-speaking settlers established a town here in the 1850s after the U.S. Army began to control the Mescalero Apaches. First known as Las Placitas del Río Bonito, the community was renamed Lincoln when Lincoln County was created in 1869. It became the center of the turbulent Lincoln County War from 1876 to 1879, a land and cattle feud marked by violence on both sides. Its historic landmarks include the Murphy-Dolan store, which later became the Lincoln County Courthouse, the store of John Henry Tunstall, whose murder set off the hostilities, and the house of Alexander McSween, where the final battle was fought.