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A Prank Led to America’s First Nominated Female to Office, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 13, 2019 33 min

27. The First US-Mexico Border Fence

Pancho Villa on horseback. Encyclopedia Britannica

Tensions were high along the US-Mexico border in 1918. Two years earlier, Pancho Villa had raided Columbus, New Mexico, triggering an American incursion into Mexico that lasted into 1917. America’s joining WWI in 1917 did not help calm things down: with war declared against Germany, American authorities now feared attacks from Mexicans instigated by German agents. Against that tense backdrop, American military intelligence reported in August of 1918 the presence of suspicious and heavily armed Mexicans in the border town of Nogales.

There were also reports of white men, presumably Germans, instructing Mexicans on military tactics. Simultaneously, an anonymous letter was received from somebody claiming to have been an officer in Villa’s forces, warning of German influences in and around Nogales. All of that would culminate in a border battle, whose most lasting outcome was the erection of the first border fence separating America from Mexico.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.