Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of New Mexico

[Walt]

There have been some recent discussions on this forum about mining and mining camps.

In the late nineteeth century, what is now New Mexico was crawling with miners wanting to strike it rich. Some were successful while most were not and the mining booms that resulted in the influx of miners into the territory created many of the towns that still exist around the state today. However, many of the camps that showed promise became villages and towns which subsequently declined and became ghost towns as the veins of precious ore played out.

There must be scores of books that have been written about ghost towns around NM but this is by far the best one I've encountered. It's over 250 pages of old and also later day photos of ghost towns, historical articles and anecdotes specific to those towns which didn't survive the end of the mining boom.

I have never considred myself a confirmed "ghost town rat" but the early history of this area firmly intertwines the "Wild West" with guns, drinking establishments, brothels and resolute, self-reliant outdoorsmen. It's a fascinating book even if you don't have a chance to visit the towns that blossomed and then faded away.

The book was written by James and Barbara Sherman, printed by the University of Oklahoma Press.

[gamekeeper]

Great thanks for the heads up

[samsi]

Thanks, I'll check that out.

Back in the 20th Century a friend had a cabin in Pinos Altos and the two-track going into the place had an old open shaft on either side of the path. I was never totally comfortable driving between those two holes with the state of the earth below a bit questionable.

It's said that Roy Bean and his brother had a store serving the miners in Pinos Altos before he became the Law West of the Pecos.

[Walt]

The NM Bureau of Mines began addressing the issue of the open vertical shafts several years ago. There must be thousands of them around the state. The Bureau of Mines offered summertime jobs to students at the NM School of Mines and elsewhere to close off or fill in mines they considered the most dangerous. A dozen miles from where I live, the San Pedro mines were the site of the first gold rush west of the Mississippi in 1843. The primary mine shaft had a funnel of loose dirt and rocks maybe thirty feet across that was exceedingly dangerous and which terminated at the bottom of a 150' foot drop. There was an aluminum ladder at the bottom indicating that someone had tried to make it across the shaft 40' below the surface where the horizontal adit came to the shaft. There almost certainly were incidents which led to the shaft being filled.

Samsi, you may remember a well-publicized story of a man and his daughter racing around and between trees on their ATVs in AZ years ago. After a days-long search, their bodies were found at the bottom of a 300' shaft. Yes, those open shafts are definitely dangerous.