Named after former New Mexico Territory military governor Edwin Vose Sumner, U.S. Fort Sumner was a military fort charged with the internment of nearby Navajo and Mescalero Apache populations from 1863 to 1868. The federal government closed the fort in 1868 and sold its buildings to Lucien Maxwell, a prominent New Mexico landowner, in 1870. In the latter 1870s Maxwell's son Pete befriended legendary outlaw Billy the Kid, and it was in his house that Billy was killed by Pat Garrett. Billy the Kid is buried in the old military cemetery in Fort Sumner, as is Lucien Maxwell.