Antelope Wells Border Station in 2019 Antelope Wells is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Hidalgo County,

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, United States. The community is located along the Mexico-United States border, in the

New Mexico Bootheel The New Mexico Bootheel is a Salient (geography), salient (protrusion) which comprises the southwestern corner of New Mexico. As part of the Gadsden Purchase it is bounded on the east by the Mexico, Mexican state of Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua ...

region, located across the border from the small settlement of El Berrendo, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Etymology

Today there are neither

pronghorn The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American ante ...

(known regionally as antelopes) nor

water well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

s in the area, but a local intermittent pond may have supported a population previously. The name comes from an old ranch, located north of the current community. The only inhabitants of the community are

U.S. Customs and Border Protection United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. It is the country's primary border control organization, charged with regulating and facilita ...

employees.

Geography

Antelope Wells is the southernmost settlement of New Mexico, situated in the region commonly known as the Bootheel of New Mexico. It is the smallest and least-used border crossing of the 43 ports of entry along the border with Mexico. The crossing, which is open solely for non-commercial traffic, is open every day from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

History

The port was established by

Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. In 1865, as Commanding General of the United States Army, commanding general, Grant led the Uni ...

in 1872 and has been staffed since 1928. In 1981, the community had a population of two, living in trailers behind the customs station, and averaged three people entering per day. In 2005, 93 pedestrians crossed over the border in the community, which consisted of just four buildings: the port of entry building, two houses and a trailer. Including domestic and international travelers, fewer than 500 buses and privately owned vehicles pass through the community each month, though traffic has been increasing as of 2006 with more international shuttle van service. Despite its low usage, there is no move to close the port, which is the only port between

Douglas, Arizona Douglas is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States, that lies in the north-west to south-east running Sulphur Springs Valley. Douglas has a Douglas, Arizona Port of Entry, border crossing with Mexico at Agua Prieta and a history of min ...

, and

Columbus, New Mexico Columbus is an incorporated village in Luna County, New Mexico, United States, about north of the Mexican border. It is considered a place of historical interest, as the scene of a 1916 attack by Mexican general Francisco "Pancho" Villa that ...

, and provides the most direct route from the United States to the

Sierra Madre Occidental The Sierra Madre Occidental is a major mountain range system of the North American Cordillera, that runs northwest–southeast through northwestern and western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre is part of the American C ...

Recreation

Antelope Wells is located on

New Mexico State Road 81 New Mexico State Road 81 (NM 81) is a state road in southwestern New Mexico. The route runs from the Mexico–U.S. border in Antelope Wells north to NM 9 in Hachita, passing through desert and semi-arid farmland. NM 81 is maintained by the ...

, which links it with

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the origina ...

and New Mexico State Road 9. Antelope Wells was the official southern terminus of the long

Continental Divide Trail The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (in short Continental Divide Trail, CDT) is a United States National Scenic Trail with a length measured by the Continental Divide Trail Coalition of between the U.S. border with Chihuahua (state), Chi ...

until it was relocated to Crazy Cook, east of the nearby Hatchet Mountains in the mid-1990s and remains the location of the long Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.

Climate

According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Antelope Wells has a

cold semi-arid climate Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...

, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps. The hottest temperature recorded in Antelope Wells was on June 27, 1994, while the coldest temperature recorded was on February 3, 2011.

Notes

External links

Map of port of entry
on the New Mexico Border Authority website {{authority control category:1872 establishments in New Mexico Territory category:New Mexico Bootheel category:populated places established in 1872 category:unincorporated communities in Hidalgo County, New Mexico category:unincorporated communities in New Mexico