(SANTA FE, March 14, 2003) — New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Patrick H. Lyons accepts Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson’s challenge to a duel on the New Mexico-Texas border.
“Anytime, anywhere,” said Lyons. “We’ll settle this once and for all, ’cause I never miss a shot.”
Lyons is referring to a 144-year-old land dispute involving a 3-mile wide, 320-mile long strip of land along the west Texas border that technically belongs to New Mexico. An inaccurate survey by John H. Clark in 1859 granted the land to Texas … and New Mexico has been trying to get it back since the first state legislature convened in 1912.
As recently as 1995, the New Mexico Legislature approved $100,000 in the General Appropriation Act for the attorney general “to enter into negotiations or litigation with both the state of Texas and the United States congress to reestablish and remark the proper boundary between Texas and New Mexico at its proper 103 meridian west.”
The attorney general was also authorized to negotiate a monetary settlement in lieu of the reestablishment of the boundary, if necessary. The governor vetoed the appropriation.
The time and place of the duel has yet to be determined. Assistant Commissioner Jerry King will serve as Lyons’ second.