The Maxwell Land Grant Time Line

The Maxwell Land Grant Time Line

This is when it all happened! Maxwell was quite a character and keeping track of

when and where it all happened can be difficult.

1841	Charles Beaubien and Guadaloupe Miranda receive the original grant.
1842	Lucien B. Maxwell arrives and marries Beaubien's 15 year old daughter Luz.
1846	US Army invades the region and New Mexico is incorporated as a US Territory. Maxwell and Kit Carson guide Colonel Freemont to California.
1848	Beaubien turns over management of grant to Maxwell. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican War and officially ceding New Mexico and much of the Southwest to the United States.
1849	Maxwell and Kit Carson settle at Rayado.
1850	US Army forms official post at Rayado. Maxwell allows them to rent his home and property. New Mexico is declared a territory.
1857	Maxwell purchases Miranda's interest in the grant. Cimarron is founded.
1858	Beaubien requests confirmation of the grant and Congress approves. Maxwell builds home in Cimarron.
1860	Prospectors begin to explore the area.
1861	Confederate Invasion of territory. All mining activities suspended for 2 years. Cimarron officially established.
1864	Beaubien dies leaving Maxwell his interest in the grant. Maxwell and his wife purchase all other interests in the grant and become sole owners. Maxwell builds the Aztec Mill.
1865	Civil War ends.
1866	Gold discovered on Baldy Peak. Maxwell considers selling the grant but decides to postpone.
1867	Captain William Moore founds Elizabethtown. Moore, Maxwell and other entrepreneurs form the Copper Mining Company. The entrepreneurs also make plans for the building of "The Big Ditch" to divert water from the Red River.
1868	Maxwell founds Virginia City, just 6 miles from Elizabethtown.
1869	Colfax County incorporated. Maxwell requests a survey of the grant from the State Surveyor General. Survey information is forwarded to Department of Interior in Washington who rules that the grant should not have been made for more than 22 leagues (about 96,000 acres).
1870	Virginia Maxwell marries Captain Keys on the third floor of the Aztec Mill and Maxwell refuses to attend. Maxwell sells his interest in the grant and moves to Fort Sumner.
1872	Elizabethtown is dying and county seat is moved to Cimarron.
1875	Maxwell dies at Fort Sumner in poverty. The new grant owners attempt to extract rents from squatters or kick them off the land. Reverend Toby fights the Grant men and is found murdered. The Colfax County War begins.
1879	New Mexico again surveys the property and upholds the original grant which includes the full 1,714,764.93 acres.
1881	Billy the Kid shot and killed at Maxwell's last home in Fort Sumner, New Mexico by Pat Garrett.
1882	Cimarron loses county seat to Springer.
1886	US Circuit Court upholds New Mexico's 1879 decision.
1887	US Supreme Court confirms the lower courts decisions.
1890	Use of the Big Ditch is discontinued.
1912	New Mexico declared a state.
1922	Oklahoma millionaire Waite Phillips purchases 300,000 acres of the grant.
1938	Waite Phillips donates 35,857 acres to form the Philmont Scout Ranch.
1941	Waite Phillips donates an additional 91,000 acres to the Philmont Scout Ranch as well as his 23 story Philtower building in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
1963	Norton Clapp purchases an additional 10,098 of Baldy Mountain mining area and donates to Philmont Scout Ranch.

Also See:

Cimarron -Wild & Baudy Boomtown

Kit Carson - Legend of the Southwest

My Friend, Kit Carson by a Santa Fe Trail Driver

Lucien Maxwell by a Santa Fe Trail Driver

Santa Fe Trail - Highway to the Southwest

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