Hoffman City in Albuquerque, NM

Hoffman City sits on Albuquerque's west side, across the Rio Grande and southwest of downtown, on ground that belonged to the Atrisco Land Grant until the late 1950s. Hoffman Homes, the Phoenix builder already known here for Hoffmantown in the Northeast Heights, bought a large tract from the grant's trustees and opened the subdivision in 1959, selling it as a whole new town rather than another tract of houses. Legal fights over deeds and mineral rights cut that plan short. The streets that did get platted became part of the Westgate area, and the name survives on plats and deeds.

The 1959 opening drew a crowd of roughly 25,000 out to the mesa, and the builder spoke of thousands of starts in the first year alone. It never happened. Fraudulent deeds on part of the purchase and a dispute over mineral rights tangled the project in court, and the sale itself was contested by Atrisco heirs whose families had held the grant for generations.