The U.S. signed the Gadsden Purchase treaty with Mexico
On this day · 30 December 1853
A cash-strapped Santa Anna sold a strip of desert that fixed America's southwestern border — and cleared a path for a southern railroad.
On December 30, 1853, U.S. minister James Gadsden and Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna signed a treaty in Mexico City transferring a strip of land along the present-day Arizona and New Mexico border to the United States.
The motive was iron, not soil: American planners wanted a flat southern route for a transcontinental railroad, and the existing 1848 border ran through unsuitable terrain. Santa Anna, desperate for cash to fund his government and put down rebellions, was willing to sell.
The U.S. Senate trimmed the deal before ratifying a revised version on April 25, 1854, cutting both the territory and the price to roughly 29,670 square miles for $10 million. That smaller parcel set the southwestern boundary of the continental United States essentially as it stands today — the last major land acquisition rounding out the contiguous map.
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