However, Horizon marketed its holdings to out of state consumers living in places like New Jersey and Pennsylvania. If you lived in New Mexico during the 70’s you would have known the development potential of this land. (They were) making horrible misrepresentations as to what they were actually selling,” Anaya said. “(Horizon was) making it appear like this was the next gold rush, land rush in the Southwest. “They were marketing these (lots) at fancy dinner parties or any way that they could market them around the country,” says former Attorney General Toney Anaya. The government, however, called it something else. Horizon touted its New Mexico holdings as the biggest land bargain in the nation. There were subdivisions with alluring names like Rio Del Oro and Rio Grande Estates. The promotional materials showed planned streets, schools, and parks. On paper, Horizon carved the desolate landscape into neat quarter acre and half acre residential parcels and peddled them as investment opportunities. The property stretches from Los Lunas, south 24 miles into Socorro County. To understand what happened there you need to go back some 50 years when the Tucson based Horizon Corporation bought up more than 200,000 acres of desolate grazing land between the Rio Grande and the Manzano Mountains. Welcome to ground zero to one of the largest land swindles in New Mexico history. The area, rural Valencia and Socorro Counties, where thousands of land purchasers were bilked and taxpayers lost millions. It’s a vast weed-choked chunk of real estate larger in area than Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and Las Cruces combined.
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