The Gadsden Purchase is a 29,670-square-mile (76,800 km2) region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Mesilla that took effect on June 8, 1854. The purchase included lands south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande which the U.S. needed to build a transcontinental railroad along a deep southern route, which the Southern Pacific Railroad later completed in 1881–1883. The purchase also aimed to resolve other border issues.
The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912, when the remaining extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of New Mexico, making it the longest-lived organized incorporated territory of the United States, lasting approximately 62 years.
Sonora Pass is the second-highest highway pass in the Sierra Nevada, lower by 321 ft. than Tioga Pass to the south. State Route 108 traverses the pass.
Naco Municipality is a municipality in Sonora in north-western Mexico.
In the American Old West, overland trails were popular means of travel used by pioneers and immigrants throughout the 19th century and especially between 1830 and 1870 as an alternative to sea and railroad transport. These immigrants began to settle various regions of North America west of the Great Plains as part of the mass overland migrations of the mid-19th century. Settlers emigrating from the eastern United States were spurred by various motives, among them religious persecution, economic incentives, some people say that the interior to destinations in the far west, including the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail. After the end of the Mexican–American War in 1849, vast new American conquests again enticed mass immigration. Legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and significant events like the California Gold Rush further lured people to travel overland to the west.
New Mexico's Bootheel comprises the southwestern corner of New Mexico. As part of the Gadsden Purchase it is bounded on the east by the Mexican state of Chihuahua along a line at 31°47′0″N108°12′30″W extending south to latitude 31°20′0″N at 31°20′0″N108°12′30″W. The bootheel's southern border is shared between the Mexican States of Chihuahua and Sonora along latitude 31°20′0″N, while the western border with Arizona is along meridian 109°03′0″W at 31°20′0″N109°03′0″W, bounding an area of 50 by 30 miles (48 km) and comprising 1,500 square miles (3,900 km2).
Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage Trail, was a major land route for immigration into California from the eastern United States that followed the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico during the California Gold Rush. Unlike the more northern routes, pioneer wagons could travel year round, mountain passes not being blocked by snows, however it had the disadvantage of summer heat and lack of water in the desert regions through which it passed in New Mexico Territory and the Colorado Desert of California. Subsequently, it was a route of travel and commerce between the eastern United States and California. Many herds of cattle and sheep were driven along this route and it was followed by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line in 1857-1858 and then the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858 - 1861.
San Felipe Valley is an inland valley of the Peninsular Ranges, located in eastern San Diego County, California. Most of the valley is protected within the San Felipe Valley Wildlife Area.
Vallecito, in San Diego County, California is an oasis of cienegas and salt grass along Vallecito Creek and a former settlement on the edge of the Colorado Desert in the Vallecito Valley. Vallecito its Spanish name is translated as "little valley". Vallecito was located at the apex of the gap in the Carrizo Badlands created by Carrizo Creek and its wash in its lower reach, to which Vallecito Creek is a tributary. The springs of Vallecito like many in the vicinity are a product of the faults that run along the base of the Peninsular Ranges to the west.
Ojo de Vaca Station, was a Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach station at Ojo de Vaca, in New Mexico Territory. It was located 14 mi (23 km) northeast of Soldiers Farewell Station and 16 mi (26 km) southwest of Miembre's River Station, later Mowry City, New Mexico. The site is now Cow Springs Ranch located in Luna County, New Mexico.
Carrizo Creek, is a stream that arises in the mountains of San Diego County, California, and terminates in Carrizo Wash in Imperial County, a tributary in turn to San Felipe Creek that terminates in the Salton Sea.
San Simon River is an ephemeral river, or stream running through the San Simon Valley in Graham and Cochise County, Arizona and Hidalgo County, New Mexico. Its mouth is at its confluence with the Gila River at Safford in Graham County. Its source is located at 31°51′21″N109°01′27″W.
Stein's Pass, is a gap or mountain pass through the Peloncillo Mountains of Hidalgo County, New Mexico. The pass was named after United States Army Major Enoch Steen, who camped nearby in 1856, as he explored the recently acquired Gadsden Purchase. The pass is in the form of a canyon cut though the mountains through which Steins Creek flows to the west just west of the apex of the pass to the canyon mouth at 32°13′19″N109°01′48″W.
Cow Springs Ranch is a locale, located in Luna County, New Mexico. The ranch headquarters is located at Cow Springs, originally Ojo de Vaca.
The Tucson Cutoff was a significant change in the route of the Southern Emigrant Trail. It became generally known after a party of Forty-Niners led by Colonel John Coffee Hays followed a route suggested to him by a Mexican Army officer as a shorter route than Cooke's Wagon Road which passed farther south to cross the mountains to the San Pedro River at Guadalupe Pass.
Playas Lake is a dry lake or playa in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, United States. It lies at an elevation of 4,278 feet / 1,304 meters. It consists of a long dry lake running north northwest south southeast within the Playas Valley between the Animas Mountains on the west and the Little Hatchet Mountains on the east.
Cooke's Wagon Road or Cooke's Road was the first wagon road between the Rio Grande and the Colorado River to San Diego, through the Mexican provinces of Nuevo México, Chihuahua, Sonora and Alta California, established by Philip St. George Cooke and the Mormon Battalion, from October 19, 1846 to January 29, 1847 during the Mexican–American War. It became the first of the wagon routes between New Mexico and California that with subsequent modifications before and during the California Gold Rush eventually became known as the Southern Trail or Southern Emigrant Trail.
Whitmire Spring is a spring in Hidalgo County, New Mexico. Correctly named on the Playas Lake South U. S. topographic map, it is mistakenly called Whitmore Spring on the U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System. The spring was named after J. B. Whitmire, a rancher in the 1880s, owner of the Whitmire Ranch. Whitmire Spring lies at an elevation of 4,291 feet / 1,308 meters, on the west shore of Playas Lake, near the site of the Whitmire Ranch. Whitmire Spring is one of a number of springs and seeps bordering the western edge of Playas Lake. Its water has its source in the Animas Mountains nearby to the west.
Whitmire Pass is a gap in the Animas Mountains in Hidalgo County, New Mexico. It lies at an elevation of 4,977 feet / 1,517 meters. The pass was named after J. B. Whitmire, a rancher in the 1880s, owner of the Whitmire Ranch that lies to the east of the pass, on the west shore of Playas Lake, nearby Whitmire Spring. Whitmire Creek flows from the west slope of the pass, into Animas Creek in the Animas Valley. Another unnamed arroyo runs eastward down into the Playas Valley, toward Playas Lake at Whitmire Spring.
