Mesilla County, New Mexico Genealogy

United States New Mexico  Mesilla County

Mesilla County was a proposed county in a proposed new territory that was never approved and never existed.

In 1857 the people of Arizona (at the time the southern part of modern Arizona and New Mexico) sent Sylvester Mowry to Congress to petition for creation of a new Arizona Territory carved from the southern part of New Mexico Territory. Mowry drew up a map with four proposed counties:


 * Castle Dome County  in present-day Yuma County, Arizona
 * Ewell County  in present-day Pima County, Arizona extended east to Apache Pass in Cochise County, Arizona
 * Mesilla County  from Apache Pass to the Rio Grande in present-day Cochise County, Arizona, and Hidalgo, Grant, Luna, Sierra, and Doña Ana counties in New Mexico
 * Doña Ana County  from the Rio Grande to Texas in parts of present-day Doña Ana, Otero, Chaves, Eddy, and Lea counties in New Mexico

The bill and these proposed counties failed passage. The only known original document mentioning these counties is the map accompanying the failed bill.