In the fall of 1891, almost two hundred French-speaking Swiss emigrated to the Pecos Valley, a desert region in southeastern New Mexico. Intense promotion in our country of the miraculous transformations had convinced them that they could make their fortune there. Farmers, winegrowers or young adventurers from good families, the Swiss settlers would spend two years trying to obtain the fabulous harvests they had been promised. To no avail. Nothing, or almost nothing, grew on the Pecos lands. Ruined and bankrupt, but above all convinced that they had been cheated, the Swiss settlers returned to their homeland or left to try their luck elsewhere on American soil.
