The Gadsden Purchase finished what the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo started. The old Spanish presidio at Tucson - known affectionately to locals as the "Old Pueblo" - was declared American territory on June 8, 1854. Few noticed. There were only 500 folks in town then, only a scant few of whom were white. Some Americans looked at the dusty old presidio, nestled comfortably in the Santa Cruz River Valley, situated a day's ride from the Mexico border, and surrounded on all sides by as many mountainous peaks as there were Apache war bands, and saw only a desert sweatbox populated with too many undesirables to make it worth their while. A more learned sort saw that, for all the danger that life south of the Gadsden line offered, southern Arizona was a land of unspeakable promise.