Wanderers in Wonder

Once the largest town in the southern New Mexico Territory (present day Arizona and New Mexico), today Mesilla, or Old Mesilla as some prefer, is a peaceful little village popular with the tourist crowd. Mesilla sits in the Rio Grande Valley north of El Paso with the Organ Mountains to the East and El Rio a short distance West.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which concluded the Mexican-American War, War of American Aggression to our friends south of the border, set the new boundary line due west from Mesilla. This meant that the new border was about forty miles north of where it is today. Jeff Davis, yes that Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War in the early 1850’s realized that the boundary did not achieve one of the unstated goals of the war with Mexico, a southern route for a transcontinental railroad. Davis prevailed upon President Pierce to open negotiations with the Mexican government to redraw the boundary line east from El Paso about forty miles south of Mesilla. This resulted in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853. Davis and other Southern politicians and businessmen wanted the transcontinental railroad to take a southern route. This would be a boon to the Southern economy as all the goods moving east and west would come through the South. Southern businesses could then ship the goods north at a nice mark-up. Unfortunately, southerners turned traitors and attacked the United States in 1861. The first transcontinental railroad took a northern route.

Mesilla is home to another of my favorite independent bookstores, Mesilla Book Center. The Book Center specializes in all things Southwestern. My Everett Ruess fixation began at the Book Center in 1982 when his biography, Vagabond For Beauty, mysteriously made its way into my hands.

Another of my go-to places in Mesilla is the Art Gallery. The gallery is owned and operated by thirty artists from the Mesilla Valley. Their work emphasizes the beauty of the local area. We have a beautiful impressionistic painting of autumn along a local acequia. The painting won an ‘En Plein Air’ award and we just could not resist acquiring it years ago.

La Posta, a favorite local eatery, was started as a stopover in the growing town of Mesilla in 1848. In 1854 the signing of the Gadsden Treaty was made public at La Posta. In 1881 Billy The Kid was tried and convicted of murder. His trial was held in La Posta. He was transferred to Lincoln, NM to be hung. He escaped and was tracked down and killed at Fort Sumner, NM a few months later, by Sheriff Pat Garrett*. Mesilla was on its way to becoming a major city by the 1880’s when the railroad arrived in the area. In order to maximize profits the railroads would often bypass existing towns by a mile or two. They knew businesses would locate along the railroad. The railroads owned much of the land along the railroad ‘rights of way’. So rather than build through existing towns, they created new towns and much profit through their land sales. Mesilla almost passed into oblivion. Some traditional Hispanic souls stayed rather than move to the new railroad town, Las Cruces. We have them to thank for the lovely town Mesilla is today.

* Pat Garret’s daughter, Elizabeth, was born blind. She was instrumental in establishing the NM School for the Blind in Alamogordo, NM. The school is still in operation today. Elizabeth also wrote the NM state song, O Fair New Mexico. Elizabeth and Helen Keller became good friends during the course of their lives helping disadvantaged people.

Peace…Wanderers in Wonder.