Anthony

Anthony welcome sign. Photo courtesty Anthony Chamber of Commerce.

Few cities, towns, villages or individuals, without moving, find their address and even their country has changed. The towns named above are some of those few, because that is what happened to them. In 1853, the Gadsden Purchase changed the southern boundary of the U.S.

New Mexico and Arizona were not yet states. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 had vaguely described the U.S./Mexico border, but President Franklin Pierce wanted to insure the United States possessed a large strip of land that would provide the most practical route for a southern railroad line to the Pacific.

Railroad promoter and diplomat James Gadsden negotiated the purchase from Mexico of 77,000 square miles for ten million dollars. In 1854, the U. S. Senate ratified the deal by a narrow margin. This odd-shaped strip of land now forms extreme Southern New Mexico and Arizona south of Gila. The eastern most portion of the Gadsden Purchase includes the Mesilla Valley that lies on either side of the Rio Grande River, where the villages in this story are located.

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