One thing is clear from paging through Postcards From the Chihuahua Border: The map lines separating the U.S. from Mexico were always meant to be crossed. The postcards collected in the book show bridges for trains, motorcars, animal carts and pedestrians, and in earlier times, ferries that regularly crossed the Rio Grande and Rio Bravo. Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, was an American tourist town with cabarets and expatriate-owned bars populated by colorful characters straight out of a Hollywood movie. Refugees? A black-and-white photo postcard shows a man leading his burro across the river, fleeing the Mexican Civil War. Violence? Rare, but spectacular in the postcard depicting burned out Columbus, N.M., after Pancho Villa’s raid. Mostly, Postcards From the Chihuahua Border depict business and bustle, which by 1960 meant streets crowded with American cars and lit by colored neon.
