The country Frank Springer rode into in 1873 was one of immense beauty and abundant resources - grass and timber, wild game, precious metals, and a vast bed of commercial-grade coal. It was also a stage upon which dramatic and sometimes violent events played out. A lawyer and newspaperman for the Maxwell Land Grant company and a foe of the speculators known as ""the Santa Fe Ring,"" Springer found himself in the middle of the Colfax County War. A man of many sides, he typified the Gilded Age entrepreneurs who transformed the territorial American Southwest. As president of the Maxwell Land Grant company, Springer led in the development of mining, logging, ranching, and irrigation enterprises. His Supreme Court victory establishing title to the 1.7 million acre Maxwell grant earned him a reputation as a brilliant attorney.

The last train to leave Cimarron, New Mexico The story of the last train to leave Cimarron endevors to answer two questions: Why did the railroad industry pull out of Cimarron, New Mexico and when did the last train leave? To answer these questions the author summarizes the history of the Cimarron country, the various people who worked to develop its lands, natural resources and rail service. How did the tiny community of Ute Park develop and why did it not grow into the vacation and recreational community the railroad executives envisioned. Was a northern railroad through New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California , going to the Pacific possible and was it needed? In many places history is driven by economics, so to understand the railroad history of Cimarron we also looked at the development of the automobile, truck transportation, air travel, bus transportation, one speed long hall railroads, development of the electric diesel locomotive and the decline of steam driven trains. All of these things are part of the complete Cimarron rail road saga. Then, there is the story of the last train.

The Spanish word cimarron, meaning “wild” or “untamed,” refers to a region in the southern Rocky Mountains where control of timber, gold, coal, and grazing lands long bred violent struggle. After the U.S. occupation following the 1846–1848 war with Mexico, this tract of nearly two million acres came to be known as the Maxwell Land Grant. WhenCimarron Meant Wild presents a new history of the collision that occurred over the region’s resources between 1870 and 1900. Author David L. Caffey describes the epic late-nineteenth-century range war in an account deeply informed by his historical perspective on social, political, and cultural issues that beset the American West to this day. Cimarron country churned with the tensions of the Old West—land disputes, lawlessness, violence, and class war among miners, a foreign corporation, local elites, Texas cattlemen, and the haughty “Santa Fe Ring” of lawyerly speculators. And present, still, were the indigenous Jicarilla Apache and Mouache Ute people, dispossessed of their homeland by successive Spanish, Mexican, and American regimes. A Mexican grant of uncertain size and bounds, awarded to Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda in 1841 and later acquired by Lucien Maxwell, marked the beginning of a fight for control of the land and set off overlapping conflicts known as the Colfax County War, the Maxwell Land Grant War, and the Stonewall War. Caffey draws on new research to paint a complex picture of these events, and of those that followed the sale of the claim to investors in 1870. These clashes played out over the following thirty years, involving the new English owners, miners and prospectors, livestock grazers and farmers, and Native Americans. Just how wild was the Cimarron country in the late 1800s? And what were the consequences for the region and for those caught up in the conflict? The answers, pursued through this remarkable work, enhance our understanding of cultural and economic struggle in the American West.

The people, geological features, and historic events that have made New Mexico what it is today are commemorated in over 350 historic markers along the state's roads. This guide is designed to fill in the gaps and answer the questions those markers provoke.

Anyone who has even a casual acquaintance with the history of New Mexico in the nineteenth century has heard of the Santa Fe Ring—seekers of power and wealth in the post–Civil War period famous for public corruption and for dispossessing land holders. Surprisingly, however, scholars have alluded to the Ring but never really described this shadowy entity, which to this day remains a kind of black hole in New Mexico’s territorial history. David Caffey looks beyond myth and symbol to explore its history. Who were its supposed members, and what did they do to deserve their unsavory reputation? Were their actions illegal or unethical? What were the roles of leading figures like Stephen B. Elkins and Thomas B. Catron? What was their influence on New Mexico’s struggle for statehood? Caffey’s book tells the story of the rise and fall of this remarkably durable alliance.

When New Mexico became part of the United States, the territory contained 295 land grants, the largest of these being the Maxwell Land Grant. The size and boundaries of the grant were disputed, with some believing that much of the land was public domain. Settlers on this land were fought not only by the land grant owners but also by a group of corrupt politicians and lawyers—known as the Santa Fe Ring (most notably Thomas Catron and Stephen Elkins)—who tried to use the situation for personal profit and land acquisition. The fight escalated in late 1875 with the assassination of Reverend F. J. Tolby, an outspoken critic of the Santa Fe Ring. In a confession one of the assassins stated that men connected to the ring had paid to have Tolby killed. Outrage, civil unrest, and more murders followed. The town of Cimarron alone was the scene of a lynching, a barroom gunfight in the St. James Hotel involving legendary gunman Clay Allison, and a nighttime murder of a prisoner. For a time the troubles in New Mexico were ignored by the federal government. But in 1878 the murder of John Tunstall set off a wave of violence known as the Lincoln County War. Following that, a letter came to light that appeared to show that the governor of the territory, Samuel B. Axtell, planned a mass execution of critics of the Santa Fe Ring, who he considered to be agitators in the Colfax County troubles. Finally, officials in Washington took notice and sent Frank W. Angel with orders to investigate the violence, murders, and corruption that plagued the territory. Following his investigation, Angel concluded, “It is seldom that history states more corruption, fraud, mismanagement, plots and murders, than New Mexico, has been the theatre under the administration of Governor Axtell.” The actions taken as a result of Angel’s investigation wouldn’t end the violence in New Mexico, but they did lead to the end of the Colfax County War.

This text focuses on the circumstances surrounding the Maxwell Land Grant in New Mexico and southern Colorado. The grant involved more than two thousand square miles of land. This work reviews the history of the land in question from the days of Mexican rule under Governor Armijo, to the time of Vigilantes in Raton. It also speaks of the ownership controversy, wherein the Utes, Apaches, Spanish and Americans all thought that they were the true land owners.