Grants Map
Grants is a city in Cibola County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 8,806 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Cibola County.
Grants began as a railroad camp in the 1880s, when three Canadian brothers were awarded a contract to build a section of the new Atlantic and Pacific Railroad through the region. The Grant brothers' camp was first called Grants Camp, then Grants Station, and finally Grants. The new city enveloped the existing colonial New Mexican settlement of Los Alamitos and grew along the tracks of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad.
The town prospered as a result of railroad logging in the nearby Zuni Mountains, and served as a section point for the Atlantic and Pacific, which became part of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad empire. The Zuni Mountain Railroad short line had a roundhouse in town (near present day Exit 81 off Interstate 40) and housed workers in a small community named Breecetown. Timber from the Zuni Mountains was shipped to Albuquerque where a large sawmill converted the timber to wood products that were sold around the west.
Nearby cities include Thoreau, Milan.