new mexico

New Mexico’s Great Seal has its origins in the 1851 formation of the Territory of New Mexico. The territorial seal featured an American eagle, and the words “Great Seal of the Territory NM”. By the early 1860’s, the Territory of New Mexico had adopted a seal that showed the wings of the American eagle protectively stretching out over a smaller Mexican eagle. The motto “Crescit Eundo”, or “It grows as it goes”, was added in 1882, and displays on a banner below the eagles. When New Mexico gained statehood in 1912, the seal was amended to read “Great Seal of the State of New Mexico”, and the date of its statehood, 1912, was added to the bottom arc of the seal.