27. The First US-Mexico Border Fence
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.