Booster Bombast

Columbus Courier, 30 June 1911

 “Our stockyards will soon rival El Paso’s massive pens,” and “come for the inexhaustible water supply.”

From our perspective 110 years later, these quips about Columbus, New Mexico, seem laughable. Who could have believed that the lands adjacent to the New Mexico-Chihuahua border matched these claims? 

Yet, between 1879 and 1889, El Paso itself had grown from a meager population of 736 to 10,338. In 1900, just a few years before the members of the Columbus Townsite Company began to advertise their locale, El Paso had grown by an additional 3,600 inhabitants. 

Maybe Columbus boosters' aspirations weren't madness, after all?