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 as a result of railroad logging in the nearby Zuni
Mountains, and it served as a section point for the Atlantic and
