Two recent stories about Texas wanting to grab some of New Mexico’s southeastern counties prompted me to look at some historical facts about our state’s boundaries over the years. And in particular, I wanted to look up Texas’ oft-repeated claim that The Lone Star State once included much of New Mexico.
Texas in fact wanted to “claim” a large chunk of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, the watershed for that river into Colorado and beyond, and for some unknown reason, a thin strip of land all the way up into Wyoming at the 42nd parallel.
They key word here is “claim.” As far as I could research, there was never an official document granting Texas those lands when it joined the United States. Texas apparently argued that it got the right to those lands through a sketchy treaty signed under duress by Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana of Alamo fame after his stinging defeat at San Jacinto. There has been much written about New Mexico’s borders and the West’s shifting state lines and I’m sure many Texans will continue to stand by their bogus claim.
The Texas story is as if I could just suddenly “claim” to own the New Mexico State University pecan orchard just down the street from our home without any legal authority to back me up.
What is interesting is that when Texas “claimed” much of New Mexico and Colorado, it basically wanted all the water rights to the Rio Grande and the Pecos River. The most recent attempt by Texas to poach New Mexico’s lands appears to be the desire to fold our rich Permian Basin oil fields into that state’s ownership and control. After Texas, New Mexico is the second largest oil producer in the continental United States. Texas would apparently like to strip New Mexico of that resource.
The latest salvo in the Texas Land Grab came recently when the speaker of the Texas House, Rep. Dustin Burrow of Lubbock, proposed legislation to study feasibility of adding certain southeastern New Mexico Counties to the Lone Star State. He apparently made the “Texas once owned much of New Mexico” claim in an attempt to justify his proposal. The counties being sought are Lea, Eddy and Roosevelt, all rich in oil and maybe nearby Curry County, also part of the area long known in New Mexico as “Little Texas.” The action by Texas follows a recent failed attempt by a New Mexico State Representative, Randall Pettigrew of Lea County, to allow those counties to transfer to Texas.
Pettigrew says he introduced his proposal mainly to generate conversation about how he thinks the southeastern corner of the state is often neglected while providing much of the state’s revenue from oil and gas production in the Permian Basin. For those of residents living far away from the power centers of Albuquerque and Santa Fe, we’re all too familiar with being neglected by the folks north of Interstate 40.
To continue along this train of thought, I’ve seen the map below of how the United States at one time considered establishing the boundaries of New Mexico.
Had that division stuck, Texas likely would have lost its claim as the biggest state in the continental United States, since the propsed territory included all of New Mexico, all of Arizona and sizeable chunks of Colorado and Nevada. It would have been a truly spectacular single piece of real estate, including the Grand Canyon, some of the Rockies’ tallest peaks, the Mogollon Rim, the Sonoran Desert and yes, that other Las Vegas and Lake Mead.
So if Texas continues to “claim” most of New Mexico was once part of that state, we can just as easily claim that New Mexico was once bigger than Texas. Take that Lone Star State!
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