Springer, New Mexico

Springer began as a townsite named Maxwell at the edge of the Maxwell Land Grant, laid out in anticipation of the Santa Fe Railroad. By eighteen eighty-three it was called Springer, honoring the Springer brothers, Charles a rancher and Frank a lawyer who handled the grant's legal affairs. By eighteen eighty-two it was the county seat of Colfax County and the commercial center of northeastern New Mexico.

Lawyers, cattlemen, and land-grant speculators filled its streets during the long and sometimes violent Colfax County War, a dispute over who really owned the millions of acres Lucien Maxwell had once called his own. The county seat moved to Raton in eighteen ninety-seven, and Springer settled into the quieter life it leads today.