Cipriano Lara was born in Jesus Maria, Chihuahua, Mexico in 1840. He moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico with his family in 1852 and worked as a carpenter. On September 20, 1861, he enlisted in the 2nd New Mexico Mounted Infantry in Santa Fe. He served as a 2nd Sergeant in Companies A and H and was mustered out at Fort Craig, New Mexico, on March 20, 1862. He married Margarita Skinner on January 2, 1863 and they moved to Taos where he was engaged in the liquor business. Lara served as the U.S. marshal there in 1862 and served three terms as a Justice of the Peace. In 1866, he had acquired enough money to purchase a ranch in Mora County, just east of Santa Fe, and began farming. They reportedly moved to Agua Dulce (present Dulce), New Mexico between 1868 and 1880, but this seems unlikely, as Lara was employed as a teamster at the Cimarron Agency for the Ute and Jicarilla Apache in Colfax County in 1875 and 1876. This was about the time that the town of Springer was established within the Maxwell Land Grant, and Lara is known to have moved to the new town and to have returned to the liquor business, running a saloon. Consequently, it is possible that Lara lived in Agua Dulce from about 1868 to 1875, took the job at the Indian Agency in 1875, and move to Springer thereafter. Lara was the census taker for the 1880 census in Colfax County, where he lived, and listed himself as a carpenter. On February 25, 1885, Lara was granted a 160-acre Homestead Entry Patent for land (part of Sec. 27 T24N, R19E) in Colfax County. It takes at least 5 years to complete such an entry, so Lara was evidently on the land by 1879 or 1880. During this time he served as the Colfax County Coroner from 1881-1885, was a Deputy Sheriff for the county in 1884, and is listed as a saloon operator in Springer in 1884. Lara’s health declined in the later 1880s, and he applied for a Civil War pension as an invalid on August 5, 1890. He died in Springer on March 24, 1891.

Haines, Helen
1891 History of New Mexico from the Spanish Conquest to the Present Time, 1530-1890, with Portraits and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent People. New Mexico Historical Publishing Co., New York.