Why the wall was built
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What historical context led to the building of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border?
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This is America in Pursuit, a limited run series from ThruLine and NPR. I'm Randa Abdel-Fattah. Each week, we bring you stories about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the U.S. that began 250 years ago. Last week, we talked about the expansion of the United States into a newfound global power.
How did Ambos Nogales become a significant border town?
But even as the country was expanding its borders around the world to include places as far away as the Philippines in the late 19th century, it was also limiting what was and wasn't part of the United States by creating boundaries and borders, especially along the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
We need to be really clear about marking this space. And that leads a lot of government officials along the border to say, we need a fence.
Today on the show, ThruLine producers Anya Steinberg and Christina Kim take us to the border city of Ambos Nogales to tell us the story of one of the first walls on the U.S. southern border. That story, after a quick break.
We're at a saloon in southern Arizona, known as The Exchange. There's men sitting around, drinking and gabbing, just like any old-timey western saloon. The saloon is in a town called Ambos Nogales.
What events led to the need for a clearer border demarcation?
Well, actually, it's two towns. Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico. That's why it's called Ambos Nogales. It means both Nogales. And the owner of the saloon, John Brickwood, has purposefully built it right on the border.
So that he could sell American liquor. without any duty on it from inside the bar. This is Rachel St. John.
She's a professor of history at UC Davis.
How did the Mexican Revolution impact the U.S.-Mexico border dynamics?
And then he had a little box on the outside that was actually in Mexican territory. And so he could sell Mexican cigars from the box without having to pay the duties on them there as well.
For most of the 1800s, there wasn't much going on here. The town was mostly railroad workers and the gambling saloons and brothels that served them. The railroad was finished in 1882, and it ran right through Amos Nogales. It brought merchants and traders to the town. The ability to move between the U.S. and Mexico was actually a huge economic draw.
And I think it's important to recognize that these government agencies and the border towns around them are initially made to support trans-border movement.
And things were pretty friendly between Mexico and the U.S.
What triggered the violence at Ambos Nogales in 1918?
along the border in these early years. A Nogales, Arizona newspaper wrote, We speak of the two towns as one, for they are really such, being divided by imaginary line only.
As those towns get more heavily developed, it becomes hard at times, particularly for government agents, but also for regular people to distinguish between when they're in Mexico and when they're in the United States. Customs officers start saying, you know, it's impossible for us to police this space if people can just walk through John Brickwood's saloon and we can't see if they're entering the U.S. or Mexico.
So the U.S. sent a survey team to mark the border more clearly. They put a new boundary monument and they build it on the porch. A giant white obelisk, the new boundary marker. Smack dab on the porch of the saloon.
How did the Battle of Ambos Nogales unfold?
But that marker was just the first step towards something much larger. In 1897, then-US President William McKinley issued a proclamation to create a clear strip of land, 60 feet wide and two miles wide, right through Ambos Nogales. The goal? To demarcate the border more clearly. John Brickwood's saloon and several homes and businesses were knocked down. And for a few years, the border stayed that way. Until 1910, when the Mexican Revolution changed life on the border once again.
Border towns became particularly important because they had ports of entry where people pay their customs duties.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What historical context led to the building of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border?
0:00–0:48
2
How did Ambos Nogales become a significant border town?
0:48–2:00
3
What events led to the need for a clearer border demarcation?
2:00–2:29
4
How did the Mexican Revolution impact the U.S.-Mexico border dynamics?
2:29–3:15
5
What triggered the violence at Ambos Nogales in 1918?
3:15–4:11
6
How did the Battle of Ambos Nogales unfold?
4:11–5:04
7
What were the immediate consequences of the battle for both sides?
5:04–5:38
8
How has the perception of the border wall changed over time?
5:38–13:36