Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks National Monument preserves 496,330 acres of Chihuahuan Desert ranges in southern New Mexico around Las Cruces, including the Organ, Robledo, Doña Ana, Sierra de las Uvas, and Potrillo mountains. Created in 2014 after strong local support and years of conservation advocacy, it protects scenery as well as an exceptional concentration of archaeological, cultural, geological, and paleontological resources. The area contains 243 known archaeological sites, early Native American settlements, tribal petroglyphs, caves, lava flows, and fossils. It also holds traces of borderland, frontier, stagecoach, military, and space-age history, making it a broad preserve where many layers of Southwestern history meet.