Anthony, New Mexico

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.

Residents had been given the choice, following the Hidalgo Treaty, of living in Mexico or the U.S. However, these events in history took that choice out of their hands, and the Gadsden Purchase set new international boundaries. Thus, those in these villages who had lived in Mexico, although they had not moved, suddenly lived in the United States of America, in what is now New Mexico. The Spanish language is heard there more often than English, and some do not speak English at all.

On the eastern end of the Gadsden Purchase, the town of Anthony, that is divided by an invisible state line, has become known by locals as the "best little town in two states." The early center of commerce developed around a flour mill located about 1/2 mile north of the state line and slightly east of where the railroad now runs. Farmers would visit and conduct business when they brought grain to the mill to be ground. The first post office was established in New Mexico in 1884, and still, in 1999, both sides of town are served by one post office in New Mexico. The post office, as well as other state and county offices, form the service center for small towns between Sunland Park and Mesilla.

Anthony, New Mexico was at one time called Halfway House because it is located half-way between Las Cruces, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. Two stories of how the post office in 1884 became Anthony exist. One says a local lady built a chapel in her home and dedicated it to her patron saint, San Antonio. When a post office was requested under that name, another city in New Mexico had already claimed it, so the English form, Anthony, was chosen. The other story is that it was named by a Catholic priest who had established a church there. At one time it was a stop on the Butterfield Stage route.

When the Santa Fe Railroad was built in 1881, they located the train depot on the Texas side of the state line and called it La Tuna. It is said that name was chosen due to the large number of prickly pear cactus that grew in the area. The Spanish name for prickly pear is La Tuna. The name was also given to the Federal Prison built at Anthony in the early nineteen thirties.

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