# @downinnadesert on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DdFf7y-Gyux
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70300003-downinnadesert-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/a2042f5860.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-09-10T00:00:03.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Down In The Desert🌵 (@downinnadesert) — https://gondola.cc/downinnadesert

## Caption

For years, James Addison Reavis convinced people that he owned a massive piece of Arizona.

And they paid him.

Reavis claimed an 18th-century Spanish king had granted millions of acres across Arizona and New Mexico to a noble family called the Peraltas. The problem was, the family history behind the claim was largely invented.

He spent years studying old Spanish and Mexican records, then created forged documents designed to look authentic and planted them into historical archives. He even used old portraits as supposed members of the Peralta family.

Then he found a teenage Mexican orphan, convinced her she was the last surviving Peralta heir, helped build a paper trail around her identity, and eventually married her.

The scheme worked.

Railroads and mining companies paid Reavis to avoid disputes over land he claimed to own. Powerful lawyers and businessmen backed him publicly, and his claim stretched across millions of acres from central Arizona toward New Mexico.

Federal investigators eventually unraveled the story by examining the documents themselves. Some of the paper was too new, and other records appeared to have been written with tools that did not exist when they were supposedly created.

Reavis lost his land case in 1895, was convicted of fraud in 1896, and served time in federal prison.

He died in 1914 with little left.

For a while, though, one man managed to convince some very powerful people that a huge piece of Arizona belonged to him.

Sources include University of Arizona Special Collections, New Mexico Archives Online, Phoenix Magazine, True West Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post.

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#Phoenix #Arizona #ArizonaHistory #DownInnaDesert

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## Tags

arizonahistory, arizona, phoenix, downinnadesert

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