Maxwell Land Grant – Largest Land Grant in US History
The Maxwell Land Grant, a sprawling expanse also known as the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant, holds the distinction of being the largest single land grant ever made within the territory that would eventually become the United States. This vast domain, encompassing a staggering 1,714,765 acres, played a significant role in the history of the American Southwest, impacting settlement patterns, resource development, and the lives of Native American tribes and settlers alike. Its story is one of ambition, conflict, and the enduring allure of the American frontier.
Geographically, the Maxwell Land Grant encompassed a significant portion of the western region of Colfax County, New Mexico, and extended northward into the southern reaches of Las Animas County, Colorado. To put its immense size into perspective, the grant was more than twice the area of the entire state of Rhode Island. Within its boundaries lay a diverse landscape, a tapestry woven with towering mountain peaks, verdant valleys, and streams teeming with aquatic life. The hillsides, alive with game, further contributed to the region’s natural abundance. Several towns emerged within the grant’s borders, including Cimarron, Springer, Raton, and Elizabethtown in New Mexico, and Segundo, along with other settlements, in Colorado.
Before the arrival of European settlers, the land comprising the Maxwell Land Grant was the undisputed territory of various Native American tribes. The Apache and Ute peoples were the initial inhabitants, later joined by the Comanche. These tribes relied on the land’s resources for their sustenance and way of life, hunting game, gathering plants, and establishing communities within its valleys and along its waterways. The arrival of settlers would dramatically alter this landscape, leading to conflict and displacement.
In 1841, five years before the United States Army’s arrival in the region, Charles Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda, two prominent figures from Taos, New Mexico, submitted an application to Governor Manuel Armijo for the land grant. Their stated intention was to encourage new settlers to migrate to the area and harness its abundant resources. Beaubien, a French-Canadian trapper who had arrived in New Mexico in 1832, had become a Mexican citizen, married a local woman, and established a successful store in Taos. Miranda, a gentleman from Chihuahua, Mexico, had come to New Mexico on business and subsequently held several government positions, including serving as Governor Armijo’s departmental secretary.
Governor Armijo, motivated by the desire to bolster the Mexican presence in the region and defend against encroachment from both American settlers and hostile Native American tribes, supported the grant application. It later emerged that Miranda and Beaubien had conveyed a quarter interest in the grant to Governor Armijo, potentially influencing his decision. Another quarter interest was granted to Charles Bent, a Taos merchant, in exchange for his promise to develop the grant. Remarkably, Governor Armijo approved the grant application just three days after receiving it. In 1843, after receiving his share of the grant, Armijo approved an additional, adjacent grant to Beaubien’s son, Narciso, and son-in-law, Stephen Louis Lee. This series of events highlights the complex political and economic landscape of the era, where land grants were often used to achieve various objectives.
The story of the Maxwell Land Grant takes another turn with the arrival of Charles Lucien B. Maxwell, a fur trapper from Illinois. Maxwell, working as a guide in the area, frequented the Beaubien-Miranda ranch. It was here that he met and married Luz Beaubien, one of Beaubien’s daughters, who was only fifteen years old at the time. Following his marriage, Maxwell led a nomadic life as a guide. In 1846, he accompanied Colonel John C. Fremont on an expedition across the desert to California, alongside the renowned frontiersman Kit Carson.
During this expedition, John Fremont documented an event in his journal where Maxwell is said to have saved the expedition when he bravely confronted a band of 300 Arapaho warriors, averting a potential conflict. Maxwell’s familiarity with the land and its people, coupled with his courage and self-assurance, proved invaluable.
In 1846, General Stephen Kearny led the U.S. Army into the Mexican territory. Governor Armijo briefly appeared at the head of a militia defending Santa Fe but soon fled with Guadalupe Miranda to Chihuahua. New Mexico became a U.S. territory following the invasion. However, due to its isolation and the hostility of the Apache Indians, few settlers were initially attracted to the area.
Charles Beaubien remained in place, but the Taos Revolt in 1847 thwarted his plans to develop the grant. He delegated management of the grant to his son, Narciso. Tragically, both Narciso and Beaubien’s son-in-law, Stephen Lee, were killed in the Taos Revolt by a coalition of Indians and Mexican patriots. Charles Bent, whom the U.S. Army had appointed as New Mexico’s civilian governor, was also killed in the revolt. Beaubien inherited his son’s interest in the other grant.
Eventually, Lucien Maxwell settled down on the ranch. He and his wife had four daughters and a son. Maxwell reportedly considered his son Peter "worthless" because the boy did not share his interests and "wasted his time with worthless friends." He favored his daughter Virginia, after whom he named a small settlement. However, when she grew up and married someone Maxwell disapproved of, he refused to attend the wedding.
In 1848, Beaubien purchased Stephen Lee’s interest from his estate for $100. Having lost interest in developing the area, he turned the project over to his son-in-law, Lucien Maxwell. Maxwell was successful. He quickly established a herd of cattle and increased the herds by setting up individual ranchers with their cattle, with payments made on a share basis.
He retained his best animals, continually upgrading the remaining stock, which included cattle, horses, sheep, and a large goat ranch. His manager would later be known as Buffalo Bill Cody. Before Cimarron existed, Maxwell founded the settlement of Rayado, about 11 miles south of Cimarron. Rayado, meaning "streaked" in Spanish, may have been named for the beautiful cliffs near the settlement. Maxwell and his wife built a one-story hacienda at Rayado, which is now a museum on the Philmont Scout Ranch.
The Ute and Apache Indians were in the area, and they were not happy with Maxwell. They frequently attacked the settlement. Life was risky, and settlers were reluctant to come until Maxwell brought Kit Carson from Taos, 35 miles west, as a protective presence. Kit Carson built a place a few miles away. Rayado was the first settlement east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and became a stagecoach and wagon stop along the Santa Fe Trail.
Maxwell and Kit Carson assembled herds of sheep and drove them over 1,000 miles of mountains and desert to California, netting them $20,000-$50,000 each. On one such drive, they reportedly made $100,000 but lost it to highwaymen on the Oregon Trail. Undaunted, they assembled another herd and did it all over again.
In 1850, the United States Army established a post at Rayado, and Maxwell rented his first home to the soldiers. Partially funded by the $200 monthly rent from the U.S. Army, Maxwell built a second, 16-room home in the area.
In 1857, Maxwell bought Guadalupe Miranda’s interest in the grant for $2,745. In 1858, Maxwell’s father-in-law, Charles Beaubien, paid a Santa Fe law firm to petition Congress to confirm the grant under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The lawyers mentioned that the grant had never been surveyed and that "no certain estimate of its contents" could be made. The petition also stated that only a small portion of the grant was "fit for cultivation."
The size of the grant was in question because, when Beaubien and Miranda originally applied for the grant, a Mexican law limited each grantor to no more than 11 square leagues. It can be assumed that Beaubien and Miranda intended to acquire about 22 square leagues or about 96,000 acres. The grant description was vague, contributing to the controversy. The documentation was susceptible to later "interpretation," so much so that the Maxwell Land Grant was over 2,000,000 acres.
In a hearing, Kit Carson testified that Maxwell had turned 200 acres of wilderness into farmland in ten years, put up buildings worth $15,000, and was running 15,000 head of cattle, which he provisioned both the Indians and the U.S. troops. Congress confirmed the grant in 1858. That same year, Maxwell moved 12 miles north from Rayado to the banks of the Cimarron River, where he built a third home.
In 1860, prospectors and miners began exploring the area, but during the Confederate invasion in 1861-62, all mining was suspended in the territory. The area became more populated, and as the number of people increased, wildlife decreased, especially the buffalo, leaving the native Indians with little to maintain their livelihood. The Apache and Comanche Indians retaliated against the newcomers by stealing livestock and sometimes killing the settlers. The Indian attacks and the bitter winters made life difficult for the first settlers. The U.S. Government stationed troops in the area after appeals from residents.
In 1864, after his father-in-law’s death, Maxwell and his wife bought out the five other heirs for amounts ranging from $3,000 to $6,000. Eventually, the Maxwells owned the entire grant, paying $35,245 (a little over two cents per acre) for the 1,714,765 acres, becoming the largest landowners in the world. He renamed the property the Maxwell Land Grant and made Cimarron his headquarters.
That same year, he built the Maxwell House in Cimarron, which was as large as a city block. This was not only his home but a place of business that included a hotel, gambling rooms, a saloon, a dance hall, a billiard parlor, and an area for women of "special virtue." Maxwell’s extravagant lifestyle was a marvel of the region where simple log and adobe houses were the norm. His mansion reportedly had high, molded ceilings, deeply piled carpets, velvet drapes, paintings in gold frames, and four pianos.
In 1864, Maxwell hired a Boston engineering firm to design the Aztec Mill, a three-story grist mill capable of grinding 15,000 pounds of wheat daily. The mill supplied flour for Fort Union and distributed supplies to the Ute and Jicarilla Apache, for which the federal government compensated Maxwell. By this time, Maxwell had become wealthy from his agriculture, cattle ranching, and real estate businesses.
It has been estimated that Maxwell’s workforce was between 500 and 1,000. Maxwell gained a reputation for brutality and openly flaunted his wealth. Though often harsh, he was also renowned for his generosity as a host, laying out food daily for about 30 people, some guests, and others traveling through the area.
In 1866, copper was discovered on Baldy Peak, just west of Maxwell’s ranch. The value of the Maxwell Land Grant increased, and Maxwell considered selling it for $75,000, but he postponed his plans.
Maxwell became involved in mining activities and, in 1867, joined Captain William Moore, the founder of Elizabethtown, and others to form the Copper Mining Company. The company began extracting ore from Baldy Peak and soon found the first lode of gold. The "gold fever" had taken root, and Maxwell began collecting rents and royalties from the placer miners, further adding to his wealth.
One of the most significant problems faced by the miners was the territory’s lack of water. In 1867, Maxwell, Moore, and other entrepreneurs planned to build "The Big Ditch," a 41-mile aqueduct system bringing water from the Red River into Moreno Valley. The "Ditch" was constructed at over $280,000, with Maxwell putting up most of the funds. However, only about one-tenth of the water into the system came out the other end, making it a poor investment.
From this investment, Maxwell started the First National Bank of Santa Fe but was ill-equipped to manage the complexities of banking, and he sold out at a heavy loss. He also invested $250,000 to help finance the Texas Pacific Railroad, but the project failed. It seemed as if Maxwell’s luck was coming to an end.
In 1869, Colfax County was created and named after the then-vice president of the United States. Maxwell again began to look at selling the grant and realized he would need to establish a clear title. He requested a survey of the grant from New Mexico’s surveyor-general, T. Rush Spencer. However, the Commissioner of the General Land Office in Washington questioned whether Spencer had jurisdiction over the entire grant and ordered Spencer to cancel the survey until more information could be obtained.
Maxwell ignored the ruling and was ready to move on. In 1870, he bonded the property to Senator Chafee of Colorado and two others for $650,000. He then sold all his other assets on the property for an additional $100,000 and moved to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, which had been demilitarized.
Five years after selling the land grant, Maxwell died in poverty on July 25, 1875, from uremic poisoning. In the meantime, the property he had sold had become the site of a significant dispute called the Colfax County War, which began in 1873 when the Maxwell Land Grant’s new owners tried to remove local settlers from land they claimed to own. The range war lasted until 1887 when it was resolved.
During the 1900s, the land was gradually subdivided, and ranchers, loggers, and private organizations bought the property. Oklahoma oil millionaire Waite Phillips purchased much of the land, now known as the Philmont Scout Ranch. In 1938, Waite Phillips gave 35,857 acres of the ranch to the Boy Scouts of America. The Old Mill Museum, which Maxwell operated as the Aztec Mill until 1870, is in the Cimarron Historic District. Maxwell’s Cimarron home fell to ruins after he left. The Philmont Scout Ranch maintains the reddish adobe buildings of Rayado. Scout leaders dressed in period costumes lead visitors through Maxwell’s adobe hacienda.
Maxwell’s last home in Fort Sumner is long gone but has been recreated in movie sets. After Maxwell’s death, it became the property of his son, Pete. In 1881, Pat Garrett shot William "Billy the Kid" Bonney in this building. Lucien B. Maxwell lies buried in a dusty corner of Fort Sumner. The only monument to Maxwell on the original grant is a concrete folk-art sculpture in Cimarron, New Mexico.