Editing Mora County, New Mexico (section)

=== In the United States ===
The Mexican–American War ended February 3, 1848, with Mora Valley and rest of the region then under formal US control, as the [[Mexican Cession]] of the [[Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo]] relinquished all claims by Mexico to lands north of the [[Rio Grande]]. Still claimed by state of Texas until the [[Compromise of 1850]], the [[New Mexico Territory]], with smaller boundaries, was formalized on September 9 of that year.

A US Army installation, [[Fort Union National Monument|Fort Union]], was built in 1851 in Mora Valley. It encroached on 8 square miles of private lands of the Mora Grant for its entire span of operation, without permission of or compensation to the local land owners. This led to a protracted legal controversy, reaching all the way to the General Land Office, the Secretary of War, and the US Congress;<ref name="SR621">US Congress, Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, "Title to Certain Military and Timber Reservations", ''Senate Report 621'', 45th Congress, 3rd Session, 1879, pp. 3-4</ref> Nevertheless, the nearby fort and its garrison provided a stable source of income to local farmers, and several [[grist mills]] were founded in Mora, including a successful one opened in 1855 by regional trader and Taos Revolt US volunteer cavalry veteran [[Ceran St. Vrain]]. The US county of Mora was established in the territory on February 1, 1860.<ref name="NMGS" /> A church was built in the Mora Valley village of [[Chacon, New Mexico|Chacon]] in 1864,<ref name="NMGS" /> reflecting additional settlement into the area. The Mora Grant / Fort Union land dispute was exacerbated in 1868 by an order of President [[Andrew Johnson]] that established a government timber reservation that encompassed 53 more square miles the private grant land (the entire [[Turkey Mountains]] subrange of the Sangre de Cristos). After being rebuilt twice, the fort eventually closed in 1891, still without restitution to land owners, despite the Kearny Code, Hidalgo Treaty, and other agreements supposedly guaranteeing continuity of Spanish and Mexican land-grant rights.

New Mexico (with reduced land area) became the 47th US state on January 6, 1912, despite concerns in Congress that the population was insufficiently assimilated into American culture, especially after an influx of Mexican refugees from 1910 onward, fleeing the [[Mexican Revolution]]. These newcomers mostly settled far south of Mora County, though it remained primarily Spanish-speaking, as it was still largely populated by the same, now-expanded, families who had settled the area three-quarters of a century earlier). On February 21, 1916, Special Master William E. Gortner sold off unallotted common lands of the Mora Grant to the State Investment Company and Edward B. Wheeler in an auction at the door of the San Miguel County Courthouse.<ref name="Sálaz">{{cite book |last=Sálaz |first=Rubén Darío |date=1999 |title=New Mexico: A Brief Multi-History |publisher=Cosmic House |location=Albuquerque |page=430 |isbn=0-932492-05-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shadow |first1=Robert D. |last2=Rodrìguez-Shadow |first2=Maria |title=From Reparticiòn to Partition: A History of the Mora Land Grant, 1835–1916 |journal=New Mexico Historical Review |date=1995 |volume=70 |issue=3 |pages=257–298 |url=https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr/vol70/iss3/3 |access-date=June 29, 2021}}</ref> Without access to the grazing and timbering lands, many residents sought work outside Mora.<ref name="Sálaz" />

In April 2013, Mora County became the first county in the United States to ban oil and gas drilling on public and private lands.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Baynham|first=Jacob|title=Blowout|journal=Outside|date=June 2014|page=28}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://deepgreenresistancesouthwest.org/2014/06/02/the-mother-of-all-anti-fracking-tools/ |title=The Mother of All Anti-fracking Tools – Deep Green Resistance Southwest Coalition |first=Jacob |last=Baynham |date=June 2014 |work=Outside Magazine |via=DeepGreenResistance.org |access-date=October 19, 2014}}</ref>

The modern [[county seat]], Mora, is a census-designated place, and consists of four neighboring settlements and three [[plaza]]s.<!-- {{clarify|date=September 2018}} -->