Anthony, New Mexico/Texas — leap year
capital of the world
By
Phyllis Eileen Banks
Last updated on Monday, December 30, 2002
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.
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.
The area between Las Cruces and Anthony contains some of
the richest farm land in New Mexico. Early crops of cotton,
alfalfa and
grape vineyards have been joined by large pecan orchards and
onion, lettuce, and chile fields. The many dairies make
insulage, alfalfa,
and grain crops popular. Population estimates of this area
are about 15,000 people living in the little hamlets and the
wide open spaces,
and encroaching seriously on the farm land in the Mesilla
Valley.
On the New Mexico side, the Gadsden Independent School
District is reported to have more bus miles than any other
school district in
the United States. The district extends from Sunland
Park on the southern end to San Miguel and Mesquite
on the north and across the
mountain to Chaparral on the east. In contrast, the Texas
side of Anthony makes up the Anthony Independent School
District, one of the
smallest school districts in the state. Anthony, New Mexico
is not incorporated and is governed by Doña Ana
County. The Texas side
of town was incorporated under the name of Anthony, Texas in
1953, and is somewhat of a bedroom community for El Paso.
In 1988, Mary Ann Brown, a member of the Anthony Chamber
of Commerce and born on Leap Year, founded the Worldwide
Leap
Year Birthday Club. The Chamber voted to proclaim the New
Mexico/Texas town "Leap Year Capital of the World" and to
sponsor
the one and only World-Wide Leap Year Birthday Club and
celebration. Then New Mexico Governor Garrey Carruthers and
Texas
Governor William B. Clements joined in the special
proclamation. Senator Pete Domenici read it into the
Congressional Record Vol.
134, No. 146, Friday, October 14, 1988, of the 100th
Congress. Quadrennial celebrations were held in 1992 and
1996. The Leap
Year 2000 celebration is planned to be the biggest one yet.
The dates set for it are February 26-29, 2000. Anyone born
on February
29 is eligible for membership in the Worldwide Leap Year
Birthday Club at $20, renewable every leap year by February
1. For
information write Mary Ann Brown, P O Box 1818, Anthony, TX
79821, 915-886-2540 or Anthony Chamber of Commerce, PO Box
1086, Anthony, TX/NM 88021. One person's idea for something
this unique can make the difference in tourism for an area,
no matter
how small the town.
One can take three routes for the approximately 25 miles
to and from Las Cruces to Anthony: via the old scenic route
on NM Highway
28 on the west side of the Rio Grande; or through the valley
on NM Highway 478 (formerly U.S. Highway 80); or if you're
in a hurry,
Interstate 10 will bypass the farm lands and villages.
La Union, an agricultural community, is
three miles southwest of Anthony on NM 28. Its post office
opened in 1909, although the ages
of the adobe houses indicate the village is probably older.
The population is primarily Hispanic-American, some of those
whose address
changed, even though they did not move.
Chamberino, four miles north of Anthony
on NM 28, was a refuge after the Mexican War for residents
who could choose between
citizenship in Mexico or the United States. Known as El
Refugio and Los Amoles, it was in Mexico until 1854, the
year the Gadsden
Purchase was atified, then became part of the United
States. After many floods, the town was rebuilt on the
higher, sandy, western mesa
The chile products have produced a retail establishment known as the
Pepper Lovers' Heaven at Pepper Tree Farm. Grapes and wine
are other products in this area and La Vina Winery,
said to be the oldest winery in New Mexico, is just off
Route 28, a short distance
to the west.
La Mesa, four miles north of Chamberino,
is another area founded following the Gadsden Purchase. The
tableland took its name from
the nearby lava flow known as Black Mesa,
although the town was originally known as Victoria. When the
post office was established
in 1908 it was named La Mesa. Populated with predominantly
Hispano-Americans and a few Anglo-American pioneers, La Mesa
is an
agricultural community. The San Jose church was established
in 1875, but was in a state of ruin by 1902.
San Miguel, three miles north of La
Mesa, has a beautiful church. It was originally built in
1880, torn down in 1926, and rebuilt from
volcanic rock. The village and post office were known as
Telles until 1917. In 1926, the Stahmans bought 2,900 acres
from the Santa
Tomas Farm. Santa Tomas is on the map north of San Miguel,
but apparently no village exists there at present. The
Stahmans cleared
the land and acquired more. Beginning in 1936, they planted
pecan trees, with lettuce, cotton, and onions among them
until the trees
became so large the crops dwindled. There are so many pecan
trees now they line both sides of the highway for three
miles.
Chaparral is eleven miles across the
mountain through Anthony Gap, east of Anthony. In Place
Names of New Mexico it is described
as a rural subdivision whose name means overgrown with scrub
oak. Many manufactured homes and mobile homes are scattered
over a
wide expanse of land. Its zip code address is the same as
Anthony's. The eastern boundary is the Fort Bliss
Military Reservation in
El Paso.
Berino, five miles north of Anthony,
just east of NM 478, is directly across the Rio Grande from
Chamberino. Settled by Hispanic-
Americans, this area is also a part of the Gadsden Purchase.
Little historic information is available, but evidently it
was called Cottonwood
at one time with its own elementary school. It is now
the home of McAnnaly Chicken Farm, a huge egg production
plant.
Vado, four miles north of Berino, has
had many names, among them Herron, Earlham, Center Valley
and Vado. The population of this
farming community was Hispanic and some African-Americans,
many of whom moved here in the 1920s from Blackdom,
a dwindling
African-American community near Roswell. The proud people at
one time established a negro college at Vado. The Herron
family had
opened a broom factory in 1886, explaining the name
"Herron." Quakers from Indiana brought the name of Earlham
that held from 1888
to 1911. Center Valley was named by a postmaster and existed
for the years 1913-1919, then returned to the name to Vado.
Mesquite, four miles north of Vada, was
a farming community established in 1882, named for the many
mesquite bushes growing there.
The post office was established in 1913.
East of Mesquite is Bishop's Cap, a park
in the southern Organ Mountains. It
contains Conklin Cave, in which bones of
ancient sloths,
camels and cave bears have been discovered. Little other
information is available.
