Big Business for New Mexico

Big Business for New Mexico. . For many of the years between 1851 and 1891, Fort Union was the greatest economic powerhouse in the New Mexico Territory. The single Army officer who controlled the huge complex that made up the Fort Union Depot , some 400 acres of storehouses, granaries, offices, shops, corrals, stables, haystacks, and woodpiles , did his work from the Quartermaster Office, a four-room building that once stood here. Here the post commander also had his office. Three civilians and five soldier clerks worked their way through the ocean of invoices, vouchers, returns, letters, receipts, bills of lading, and inventories that the Army considered essential to control the constant arrival and dispersal of a mountain of supplies., The Mission , Keep the Army Posts Throughout the Southwest Supplied, Decisions made in this office affected life and operations on military posts from Colorado to the California border. Clothing, blankets, harness, wheels, shoes, grease, and endless items the Army needed were shipped into this depot, then distributed to forts all over the Southwest. Keeping those blankets, bullets, and beans moving out to the troops depended on thousands of Army mules., Every year Fort Union's chief quartermaster bought tons of locally grown corn, oats, flour, and beef, thousands of cords of firewood, and over 2,600 tons of hay and straw. Heavy military spending from this office changed the local economy from a barter system to a cash-based economy. , The upper Mora River valley soon came to be known as "the breadbasket of the Southwest." Ranchers and farmers built many flour mills along the Mora River to grind locally grown wheat into flour for Fort Union.