Editing Springer, New Mexico (section)

==History==
[[Image:Former courthouse in Springer, NM IMG_0543.JPG|thumb|left|Former Colfax County Courthouse is now a historical museum]]

In 1877, William T Thornton, representing the [[Maxwell Land Grant]] and Railway Company commissioned Melvin Whitson Mills to "sell, locate, survey, map  and plat, and lay out town site, no exceeding three hundred and twenty acres".  Judge Mills selected a location along the Cimarron called Las Garzas and laid out the townsite and graded the streets.  The Maxwell Land Grand and Railway Company conveyed the deed to Mills on March 31, 1880. The deed bequeathed the town Maxwell, but by 1883 according to the deed for the Mills Mansion, it was named Springer after two brothers: Charles Springer, a rancher near [[Cimarron, New Mexico|Cimarron]] and brother Frank, a lawyer and official of the Maxwell Land Grant Company.<ref name="Pearce_1965">Pearce, T.M.,editor, ''New Mexico Place Names, A Geographical Dictionary'', University of New Mexico Press 1965. {{ISBN|0-8263-0082-0}}</ref>

The town was the [[county seat]] of Colfax County from 1882&mdash;1897 and keeps the former Courthouse as a museum. The location was chosen due to anticipation of the [[Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway]] coming and as it was halfway between the Mountain Branch and [[Cimarron Cutoff]] of the [[Santa Fe Trail]].

The Springer Correctional Center, operated by the [[New Mexico Corrections Department]], is located {{convert|2|mi|0}} northwest of Springer. The correctional center is one of New Mexico's oldest detention facilities, having begun operation in 1909 as the New Mexico Boys' School.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://corrections.state.nm.us/prisons/SCC.html | title=Springer Correctional Center, Springer | publisher=New Mexico Corrections Department | accessdate=December 25, 2011}}</ref>