Established. Trustworthy. 100% New Mexico.

Las Cruces Abstract & Title Company has been in the title industry since 1926 and is serving Doña Ana
County, Hidalgo County, and Luna County as the go-to real estate closing company.

Our company is a one-stop-shop real estate closing company that provides Title Insurance, Title Searches, and much more.

The company has seen and been a part of the tremendous changes in the area since our inception 91 years ago.

We’ve expanded to other regions and have become apart TCNM network to provide the state and region with excellent services in the long run.

From the dusty roads of yesteryear to the superhighways of today, LCAT is here to stay. We thank the community for our longevity and all our wonderful clients who allowed us to assist them in their real estate transactions.

Meet Our Staff Members

The list of Underwriters

A History of the Las Cruces Abstract & Title Co. Building

Written by Manuel Chavez whose family’s roots dig deep into the structure.

Otto Bombach, during 1888 or early 1889 purchases a one quarter block lot on the southeast corner of Griggs and Campo Street. In 1889, he built a large adobe rectangular home at 119 south Campo, which was in the center of that lot. After Otto died, his widow, Hipolita, continued living in this home with her daughter, Margarita, who was my mother. Hipolita died about 1914. Margarita married Manuel J. Chavez in 1915 and continued living in this home. During 1917, they purchased the home from the heirs, and I was born in the front left room on November 8, 1918. My sister, Josephine was born in the same home in 1916. (Note: I visited the Las Cruces Abstract office a few years ago and noted a sign above an office door reading: Don Manuel, the room where I was born. Another room has the name Josefina, for my sister).

My parents rented spare rooms in that home from $5 to $7 per month. During 1925, while my father Manuel Sr. was county clerk, they decided to build their own three-bedroom home adjacent to the original home, 306 East Griggs. The adobes were made in the yard and a journal kept by my father shows that a load of clay dirt hauled by horse driven wagon cost $7, and straw $1 per bail. The record shows that 8,000 adobes were made on the property. The cost of that home was $3,850. I watched the men make the adobes and build the home.

During 1929, Manuel and Margarita decided to remodel the old Bombach home and convert it to five modern efficiency apartments which they named Valencia Courts. Each apartment was named by Margarita after Spanish names: Carmen, Consuelo, Dolores, Eloisa, and Rosa. After a few years, they built five garages for the tenants. A basement was built under the center of the building for a hot air furnace. The nitch in the narrow basement hallway to the furnace was for the compressor of the Kalvinator Refrigerators in each apartment. After a few years, the Kalvinators were replaced by GE refrigerators that didn’t need a central compressor and nitch was used for storage of firewood or coal.

The original rectangular structure had a prominent front entrance, beautifully wood frame door and side windows, hand-carved by Otto Bombach. There was a foyer at the front entrance which then led into a great room to the rear of the building. Three large, high ceiling rooms were on each side of the great room. A porch in the rear extended the full width of the building. For the conversion into five apartments the two middle rooms were partitioned in half and converted into kitchens and bathrooms for the adjoining rooms, which then became four apartments., the roof was removed from the center of the building, over the great room and became an open patio. The back ¼ portion of the former great room was walled-in and became a living room that was joined with 2/3 of the back porch to create the fifth apartment. The rear apartment on the right utilized the remaining 1/3 of the porch which became a small bedroom, occupied for years by Pat Riley.

The large room in each apartment was a living room by day and converted to a bedroom at night by utilizing pull down double beds, which were enclosed in an attractive cabinet. The kitchens were equipped with GE electric stoves as well as the Kalvinator Refrigerators.

The apartments were rented before the completion day and the first tenants moved in on October 1, 1930. The first occupants were Mr. and Mrs. Kendricks in Carmen. Genevieve and Pat Riley occupied the Consuelo apartment, which was the largest. Mr. and Mrs. Hart in Rosa, Mr. Sincox in Doores, and Henry Fountain in Eloisa. The venture was successful because the apartments were modern and convenient to downtown Las Cruces and the income was sufficient to pay off the debt and meet expenses. The apartments were popular among teachers and professors at A&M. Among the well-known professionals were Lela Carwardine, Harold Brown an A&M professor, and Elizabeth McCoy, the Librarian at A&M, who later married one of the tenants, Grover Murphy, a pharmacist.

My parents sold the property in January of 1956 for $45,000. The new owner eventually converted the garages to efficiency apartments. Several years later the property was purchased by the Las Cruces Abstract & Title Company, and the wife of one of the young owners was Beverly Chavez, my second cousin. That’s probably why rooms were named after me and my sister.