Incorporation
Incorporating Santa Teresa as a separate city will ensure:
- Santa Teresa remains an attractive community for both residents and businesses;
- Santa Teresa continues to contribute to the overall economic development of our region;
- Santa Teresa has a responsive, responsible, and transparent city government which meets the needs of its residents and businesses;
- Santa Teresa retains tax dollars collected from its residents and businesses for use within Santa Teresa, and Santa Teresa remains Santa Teresa.
Vision
Our vision is to establish a city government that provides traditional governmental services to a mixed-use community that integrates globally competitive industrial, commercial, transportation, medical, and educational facilities with traditional neighborhoods offering employment, shopping, housing, recreational opportunities, and other amenities for its residents
History
According to records maintained by the Office of the State Historian of New Mexico,1 on January 20, 1768, the Lieutenant Governor of New Biscay, New Spain, today known as Chihuahua, Mexico granted Francisco Garcia, the military commandant of El Paso del Norte, a four-league tract of land situated on the west bank of the Rio Grande River about seven miles northwest of El Paso del Norte. Garcia first used the tract, known as “Rancho de Santa Teresa,” as pasturage for his cattle and sheep herds and later occupied the Rancho. Captain Zebulon Pike, sent out by President Thomas Jefferson to explore and document the southern portion of the Louisiana territory, reported in 1807 that Francisco Garcia managed twenty thousand sheep and a thousand cattle on the land.
The unincorporated area generally known as Santa Teresa is located in a region rich with a history of agriculture and trade where the borders of New Mexico, Texas, and Chihuahua meet. Santa Teresa’s warm climate, low humidity, and mild winters make it well-suited for human settlement. Economic growth, largely based on maquiladoras, transportation, food processing, and the military, has helped establish Santa Teresa and the surrounding region as a major center of manufacturing, trade, and defense activities. With a total population of 4.678, a median household income of $53,963, established schools, an existing utility infrastructure, and a substantial commercial/industrial base, we, the residents of Santa Teresa, are ready to take the next step in our journey together: incorporate!