Railway
New Mexico is one of the fifty states that make up the United States of America. Its capital is Santa Fe and its most populous city, Albuquerque. To complete the territory of the state of New Mexico, the United States acquired the boot heel of the southwest of the state and southern Arizona -territory mostly desert- in the purchase of the Mesilla of 1853. This purchase was desired when this territory was seen as a much easier route to build a transcontinental railroad to San Diego and Los Angeles south of the Gila River. The company Southern Pacific built the second transcontinental railroad on this land purchased in 1881.