In most extensional terrains such as the Rio Grande rift, alluvial fans and bajadas cover faults and terraces as extension progresses, thus limiting the faults and terraces as useful records of uplift. However, in the Franklin Mountains of western Texas and southern New Mexico (USA), rapid aggradation of basin floors by extensive playa lakes and floodplain deposits of the Rio Grande during the Pliocene buried the irregular mountain-front fans, thus creating a low-gradient surface. This originally planar surface was subsequently uplifted and deformed during faulting, providing a record of the Pliocene-Holocene extensional deformation in the southern Rio Grande rift. Deformation and uplift of the Franklin Mountains in the southern Rio Grande rift was estimated by measuring the elevation of late Pliocene terraces that are adjacent to range-bounding faults. The uplifted terraces are exposed along both sides of the Franklin Mountains, and lie as much as 130 m above their original elevation. Together the uplifted terraces form an anticlinal arch that mimics the profile of the range crest of the mountains. Three important conclusions can be drawn from the similarity of profiles among the terraces and mountain crest. First, the observation that the terraces mimic the range crest implies that the present-day topography of the mountains is likely tectonic in origin. Second, the east-side terraces are higher than the west-side terraces, suggesting rotation of the mountains during deformation. Estimated rotation since the Pliocene is ~5% of the total rotation. Third, fault throw rate calculations indicate differential slip along the length of the eastern boundary fault zone. The fault profile and throw rate calculations along the eastern margin of the range are skewed to the south, suggesting that the southern segment of the Franklin Mountains has accumulated a majority of the slip during this time frame. These observations, coupled with geophysical data highlighting buried faults beneath the El Paso (Texas)-Juárez (Mexico) metropolitan region, suggest that normal faults related to uplift of the Franklin Mountains have been growing in length toward the south over the last several million years.