[4] In 1877, William T Thornton, representing the Maxwell Land Grant and Railway Company commissioned Melvin Whitson Mills to "sell, locate, survey, map and plat, and lay out town site, no exceeding three hundred and twenty acres".

Judge Mills selected a location along the Cimarron called Las Garzas and laid out the townsite and graded the streets.

The Maxwell Land Grand and Railway Company conveyed the deed to Mills on March 31, 1880.

The deed bequeathed the town Maxwell, but by 1883 according to the deed for the Mills Mansion, it was named Springer after two brothers: Charles Springer, a rancher near Cimarron and brother Frank, a lawyer and official of the Maxwell Land Grant Company.

The location was chosen due to anticipation of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway coming and as it was halfway between the Mountain Branch and Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Springer has a total area of 1.5 square miles (3.8 km2), all land.