You could easily pronounce this place REE-UH-DO-SO, with a noticeable Texas twang. Look at license plates and talk to people in shops and on the street, and the anecdotal information says this place is either visited by a huge group of Texans or has become home to people who once hailed from there. "(Texas) ought to just annex the damn place," said Dan Savage of Waco. The just retired publisher of the Waco Tribune-Herald bought a house here about three years ago.

"Just about everybody I know (in Ruidoso) is from Texas. In fact, I don't know anybody that isn't," he said, adding that the three homes on his street are owned by people from Waco, Houston and Abilene. "We're just a microcosm of the rest of the city."

The proof is in the property taxes. Of the 29,106 tax bills mailed for 2004, 17,652 went to New Mexico addresses (13,311 of those in Lincoln County, Ruidoso's county seat), and 8,543 were sent to Texas. The third largest grouping went to California: 669. Just how much Texans contribute to the economy isn't known, but everyone acknowledges it's got to be a heckuvalot.

Savage had come through the town recently on the last leg of a weekslong cross-country motorcycle trip. He wasn't staying but a day or two and didn't figure he'd spend much. But between gas and a hamburger, among other small expenditures, he said he spent about $80, "and that's just half a day."

"Ski season (with the family along) is more like ... damn it's expensive! I don't really know." Still, he says, "Even us poor folks can afford a second home here," compared with other ski resorts such as Vail, Aspen, Santa Fe and Taos. Affordability on everything from real estate to meals is one thing that keeps Texans and their wallets coming back. But proximity and climate are equally important. "You can literally play golf here year-round," says John Chappell, owner of West Texas Discount Golf in Abilene, Texas. He was at his family's Ruidoso house over back-to-back weekends around Labor Day with his wife, Carol. "It's worth the six-hour drive just to come up and cool off for 48 hours," he said, not to mention there are no mosquitoes.

Because of skyrocketing oil and natural gas prices, West Texans, often called the "bread and butter" of Ruidoso, are expected to flood the village even more than usual. Residents of oil-economy towns such as Midland, Odessa and Lubbock have historically boosted Ruidoso's economy when the industry has gushed, landing them extra cash. Real estate agent Richard Abel, who recently opened an office for the Vaughan Company in Ruidoso, says he's seen the phenomenon first-hand. The number of people and the amount of coin coming into the village on any given weekend, he says, is directly proportional to "how many Cadillac Escalades drive in from Texas."

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