Mora Land Grant
Disputes about ownership between speculators and residents were frequent and persistent until the former commons land was auctioned in 1916 to the highest bidders.
The grant land extended from the Great Plains west of the town of Wagon Mound for about 40 miles (64 km) west to the crest of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with elevations ranging from about 6,500 ft (2,000 m) on the eastern border to 12,835 ft (3,912 m) at Jicarita Peak on the western border.
He established (or recognized) the town of Santa Gertrudis (present day Mora) and distributed land to forty settlers.
He also founded the settlement of San Antonio (present day Cleveland) in the upper valley of the Mora River and distributed land there to 29 settlers.
Long, narrow strips of land bordering on the Mora River were given to each farmer so that each had access to irrigation water.
[8] A U.S. military post, Fort Union, was established on grant land in 1851 to protect commerce on the Santa Fe Trail from Indian raids.
[9][10] The economy of the inhabitants of the Mora Grant was concentrated on semi-subsistence agriculture, grazing large herds of cattle and sheep, timber, and migratory labor.
The Santa Fe Trail passed through the eastern part of the grant, but a railroad supplanted it after its completion in 1879.
The wool industry became important with a market for the trade in Wagon Mound, just outside the eastern boundary of the Mora Grant.
[15] Elkins, Catron, and allies had claims to 600,000 acres (240,000 ha) of land in the Mora grant but ran into legal difficulty with the residents who refused to pay rent or otherwise acknowledge their ownership.
In 1931, 41,397 acres (16,753 ha) in the former grant area was deeded by an owner to the U.S. Forest Service in exchange for rights to harvest timber in the state of Washington.
The acequia is 8 mi (13 km) long and "constructed without the benefit of sophisticated tools and engineering know-how, accomplishing the seemingly impossible task" of bringing water from one side of the mountains to the other.
