By 1909 a number of Mennonites had settled in East Las Vegas, a northeastern New Mexico town that had developed one mile east of "Old Town" (West Las Vegas) along the line of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad after that railway had been completed to the area in 1880. On 8 April 1909, J. C. Springer reported on this settlement in the Gospel Herald:

We believe this to be a good financial proposition. The soil seems very fertile. Dry farming or the Campbell System of scientific farming is practiced here mainly. We also believe this to be a healthy climate, especially for lung and catarrhal troubles but for certain forms of throat troubles this dry atmosphere is not so good. We have a union Sunday school with an average attendance of about 35, comprised of Mennonites, Brethren, Presbyterian and United Brethren. Land sells at from $15 to $20 an acre.

Jacob A. Heatwole, an ordained Virginia Mennonite Conference minister who had moved to Fairmount (present-day Swink), Colorado, in 1907, and would be ordained as a Bishop in the Kansas-Nebraska Mennonite Conference at La Junta in 1919, served as a visiting minister in the East Las Vegas Mennonite "colony" from 1908 to 1912. The East Las Vegas Mennonite Church was established with eight charter members and received into the Kansas-Nebraska Mennonite Conference in 1911. By 1918 the group had dispersed, and the church ceased to exist.

Bibliography

©1996-2013 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.