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This is the US-Mexico border—home to one of the world’s longest-running games of
hide and seek.
It stretches about 2,000 miles or 3,000 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico
and has never caused any problems at all except for presently, historically, and at all times
in between.
One of those problems has to do with this little town—Río Rico.
Río Rico, which translates to something, is a small little Mexican town… or maybe
American town—it kinda depends on when you’re taking about.
You see, back when the US’ S’ became U’d, the country was just this and then they decided
they kinda wanted that stuff too.
Believe it or not, they didn’t do a great job of agreeing exactly where the borders
were with New Spain, aka OG Mexico, which led to a bit of a war, but eventually it was
decided that the border in this area would be the Rio Grande River.
There was, however, an issue with that: rivers move.
As in, they change course through time.
Different rivers change at different paces, but the Rio Grande is particularly volatile.
Of course, what you don’t want is for the border to be set as how the river was back
in the 1800s, and then the river moves and suddenly people are cut off from their own
country.
Therefore, the negotiators of the different border treaties had a genius solution: they
would set the border as the center of the river, regardless of how it meanders or moves.
But of course, like all solutions presented within the first two minutes of an HAI video,
that didn’t quite work perfectly.
Say the US decided they needed just a little more space.
All they’d have to do is divert the river to change course further into Mexico and boom—more
space for strip malls, parking spaces, and whatever else Americans do with land.
Obviously neither country wanted the other to be able to do that.
Ok, so, solution number b: in 1884, another agreement was reached which stipulated that
only natural changes to the river’s course would lead to land being ceded to the other
country.
Bam, good job guys, mission accomplished, let’s go home.
A few decades later, though, just like with Facebook, a bunch of old white guys came and
ruined things—specifically, a company called the The American Rio Grande Land & Irrigation
Company, which did… land and irrigation-y things, I guess.
It just so happened that in this area, they had a pump station in order to irrigate things,
or something, I really don’t know, but they were worried that if the river changed course
there would no longer be water to pump.
Therefore, they found this big curve in the river, and dug a channel through the curve,
because for some reason they believed that would make the pump spot more water-y, I guess.
This led to the river bypassing the curve, and therefore all of this land was cut off.
But “nu-uh,” said the International Boundary Commission, “you just violated international
law,” or specifically, that 1884 agreement about not purposefully changing the course
of the river.
The company was slapped with a $10,000 fine which, adjusted for inflation, is the equivalent
of $6,268.64 in 1803 dollars.
They were also ordered to place boundary markers around the land lost to the other side of
the river so people knew it was part of the US.
Only problem: they didn’t.
The Boundary Commission just kinda forgot to enforce this and therefore, through time,
it was just forgotten that this area, knows as the Horcón Tract, was part of the US.
Fast forward many years, and America decided that people shouldn’t be allowed to drink
unless they were rich, famous, or a politician—a bit like with healthcare today.
Therefore, capitalists saw the opportunity to set up dedicating drinking destinations
just outside the US.
Turns out, there was this great spot here in Mexico—or so they thought, said the foreshadower—and
so a bridge was set up across the river so thirsty Texans could get their booze on.
This was apparently an amazing party town with bars, casinos, dog racing, and plenty
more, but eventually the US un-prohibitioned alcohol so the party town just became a town—Río
Rico.
Fast forward many more times, and 1967 came.
Some researcher, while researching, researched and found a long-forgotten map that displayed
the illegal artificial diversion that the American Rio Grande Land & Irrigation Company
caused.
“But wait a minute,” the researcher said, maybe, “that would mean this is America.”
It turns out that Río Rico was an American town, despite the fact that, since its founding,
it had been administered as a Mexican Town.
This researcher therefore called the, “I just discovered forgotten American land,”
hotline, and, in the end, America and Mexico decided, rather than going through all the
trouble of transferring the land back to America and setting it up as an American town, this
area would just be ceded to Mexico, even though it was truly American.
In the next treaty exchanging land lost to the other side of the river, Río Rico and
the area around it was formally given to Mexico.
Story over… unless… well, there’s one little epilogue.
As all of those hiking enthusiasts near the border know, American citizenship law includes
a provision where anyone born in the US, no matter if they’re in the country legally
or not, is an American citizen.
That meant that everyone born in Río Rico was actually, unbeknownst to them, an American
citizen.
It took about a decade of legal work to persuade immigration courts of this, but in the end,
about 1,000 residents of the town were able to prove their citizenship, get an American
passport, and move to the US, leaving what was now Río Rico, Mexico, a tiny, largely
deserted town.
So, if you’ve watched to here, you clearly like learning about small, strange, far-off
places, and so you’ve surely seen the Nebula original that we made about the tiny South
Atlantic island of St Helena.
Well, in just a few short weeks, we’ll be releasing the next in our series of documentaries
about remote locations.
I won’t tell you any more yet—only that the location is even more remote, more extreme,
and more fascinating.
You can watch these originals on Nebula—the streaming site home to all your favorite educational
creators—and the best way to get access to Nebula is through their bundle deal with
Curiosity Stream.
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and non-fiction shows which is a fantastic way to entertain and learn at the same time,
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