US Forest Service – Mount Taylor Ranger District

About forestry service, 87935, Elephant Butte, NM, US, New Mexico

Grants is a city in Cibola County, New Mexico, United States. It is located about 78 miles (126 km) west of Albuquerque. The population was 9,163 at the 2020 Census. It is the county seat of Cibola County. Grants is located along the Trails of the Ancients Byway, one of the designated New Mexico Scenic Byways. == History == Grants began as a railroad camp in the 1880s, when three Canadian brothers – Angus A. Grant, John R. Grant, and Lewis A. Grant – were awarded a contract to build a section of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad through the region. The Grant brothers' camp was first called Grants Camp, then Grants Station, and finally Grants. The new city enveloped the existing colonial New Mexican settlement of Los Alamitos and grew along the tracks of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. The town prospered from railroad logging in the nearby Zuni Mountains, and it was a section point for the Atlantic and Pacific, which became part of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The Zuni Mountain Railroad short line had a roundhouse in town (near Exit 81 off Interstate 40) and housed workers in a small community named Breecetown.