Editing Gadsden Purchase (section)

=== New Mexico ===
[[Mesilla, New Mexico|Mesilla]] was initially the largest city in what would become the State of New Mexico, with more than 2,000 residents in 1860, more than twice what [[Las Cruces, New Mexico|Las Cruces]] had; at that time, Mesilla had a population primarily of Mexican descent.<ref name="Harris History" />{{Rp|48}} When the [[Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway]] reached the area, the landowners of Mesilla refused to sell it the rights-of-way, and instead residents of Las Cruces donated the rights-of-way and land for a depot in Las Cruces.<ref name="Harris History" />{{Rp|58}} It served as the capital of the [[Confederate Arizona|the Confederate States' short-lived Arizona Territory]] during the [[American Civil War]].

Currently [[Sunland Park, New Mexico|Sunland Park]] (population 16,702 in 2020), a suburb of El Paso, Texas, in [[Doña Ana County, New Mexico]], is the largest community of [[New Mexico]] in the Gadsden Purchase.

[[Lordsburg, New Mexico]] (population 2,797 in 2010), the county seat of [[Hidalgo County, New Mexico|Hidalgo County]], was in the disputed area before the Gadsden Purchase, and Deming, New Mexico, the county seat of [[Luna County, New Mexico|Luna County]], was north of both the Mexican and American land claims before the Gadsden Purchase, though the proposed Bartlett–Conde compromise of 1851 would have left Deming in Mexico, or stated in positive terms, the negotiations for the Gadsden Purchase resolved the border disputes with Mexico, as well as transferred this land to the U.S.<ref name="James1969">{{cite web|last=James|first=Harold L.|year=1969|title=History of the United States-Mexican boundary survey{{snd}}1848–1955|url=https://nmgs.nmt.edu/publications/guidebooks/downloads/20/20_p0040_p0055.pdf|access-date=July 7, 2018|via=New Mexico Geological Society}}</ref>