1853
Herman Ehrenberg’s 1858 map of the Gadsden Purchase and neighbouring lands, from the US National Archives.Image: Department of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. 9/17/1947 · Public domainpolitics · Americas
The United States buys the Gadsden Purchase
In Mexico City on 30 December 1853 the American minister James Gadsden and envoys of President Antonio López de Santa Anna signed a treaty selling the United States about 30,000 square miles of land south of the Gila River, in what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico. The United States wanted a flat route for a southern railway to California; Santa Anna needed money. After the Senate trimmed the treaty, the price was $10 million. It was the last large piece of land added to the mainland United States.
Source: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: Gadsden Purchase, 1853-1854 ↗
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