Gold, Ghosts and Guns
Gold, Ghosts and Guns: A Visit to the Old West
“We ain’t never been a ghost town. We’ve always had at least one live resident” says Dick Weaver, 79, of Mogollon (pronounced: muggy-OWN) New Mexico, USA. For the past five years Dick has run the museum in one of the State’s most picturesque and remote villages. But Despite his claim, Mogollon, along with hundreds of other sites across the American West, is indeed a ghost town. According old west historian Leon Metz, a ghost town is one that is ‘a shadow of its former self.’ Or as Philip Varney, author of New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns defines it; “a town whose initial reason for settlement no longer keeps people in the community.” Either definition qualifies Mogollon, population 15, as a ghost town of the first order.
My visit was part of a tour of the state’s historic sites that took me some 800 miles through brilliant mountain scenery, national forests, canyons, river valleys and high plateaus in search of the old Wild West. New Mexico is home to countless old mining camps and boomtowns that saw their heydays in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most prospered in silver, while some grew up around the likes of gold, iron ore, copper or coal. Other communities blossomed and perished as a direct result of their proximity to railroads or as centers for ranch and farm communities who lost their heirs to city life.
Those towns that saw the worst and best of the Wild West – gunfights, Indian raids and tremendous prosperity – were by and large, the mining camps of old. Today these places can range from a few crumbled building foundations plunked in the middle of nowhere to prospering tourist destinations that combine authentic western settings and historic structures, with trendy boutiques, coffee houses and dining delights.
My journey began south of Albuquerque, along highway 60, headed west. My oldest friend and trip photographer sat beside me, as my son and his gal followed in their four-wheel-drive truck. A rich azure sky spread out above the high plains and prairies through which we rolled. Wispy clouds stretched themselves across the expanse of the heavens, while crisp, white cumulous formations signifying monsoon rains billowed to the north. Ahead of us, layers of gray mountains floated between earth and sky and we followed an asphalt line as it tenderly sliced the prairie in two.
Traffic is unheard of in this part of the world, and the open freedom of the road swept me to some timeless place where past and present join. The big New Mexico sky blanketed my thoughts of here and now, and I felt as if we were driving, not west, but back to an era of gold fever and Indian raids, cattle runs and mule caravans.
Mogollon
Tucked in a narrow canyon along the western edge of the State, Mogollon is one of many mining towns that once enjoyed the excesses accompanying sudden prosperity – gambling, girls and guns. It is considered a premier ghost town due to its exquisite setting and well-preserved structures of weathered wood and adobe (mud brick). Built between Whitewater and Mineral Creeks, in the heart of the Gila national Forest, Mogollon was the boomtown and base camp for several of the area mines.
The road to Mogollon is a treacherous series of switchback turns, blind corners and sheer drop-offs hewn from the mountainside by convict labor at the end of the 19th century. The entire 12-mile journey from State Highway 180 gains 4,000 feet, going from the San Francisco riverbed to the west, up to the high, alpine forests of the Mogollon Mountain Range. The range was named after one Don Ignacio Flores Mogollon, Governor of the (then) Spanish territory in the early 18th century.
Along the way we passed natural features with titles befitting the landscape. Blue Bird Gulch, Slaughterhouse Spring and Windy Point speak of the American Southwest’s untamed terrain. As we neared the town we caught one of the State’s most remarkable ghost town views: the remains of the Little Fanny Mine. Its chalk-white tailings (mining waste products), spread from the mine base like an oversized flow of dried laundry soap. The mine’s mainframe stands above a sixteen hundred foot deep shaft that once produced countless tons of precious ore.
From this seven thousand foot vantage, we descended more than 600 feet into a town so picturesque as to seem like the false set of a movie. Others must have thought the same, for Mogollon was once used as part of a Hollywood spaghetti western called “My Name is Nobody” featuring Henry Fonda.
The first time I visited Mogollon, some 15 years ago, I had never ventured into the tight, box-like canyons of the American southwest. I was stunned by the ochre and rust colored walls that rose above this remote outpost like the bastions of some ancient fortified trading garrison. The town itself is made up of many fine examples of western Victorian falsefront buildings which line the narrow road or stand precariously along steep hillsides.
Seargent James C. Cooney discovered the canyon in 1870 when he was sent from Fort Bayard to map the area. His report, however, did not include his discovery of an outcropping of rich, gold-bearing ore. Cooney chose to keep his secret until his military discharge in 1876, when he gathered some friends and laid claim to his finds.
The tight canyons and dramatic mesas of the Mogollon range had been home to the Apache Indians who held those mountains firmly against the mining invasion. Indian attacks were a constant hazard and in April of 1880 Apaches led by the famed Chief Victorio began ferocious assaults throughout the area. That same year, Seargent Cooney headed to nearby Alma in order to warn settlers of an impending raid. He may have saved many of the townsfolk, but on his return he was ambushed and killed by Victorio’s men.
Victorio had a long history in the region and was considered by settlers to be one of the fiercest of all the Apache. He and his band of warriors were pursued by countless cavalry troops yet consistently eluded capture, often leaving a trail of dead soldiers in their wake. Victorio also saw his end in 1880, when Mexican troops surrounded his camp, murdering 60 warriors, and 18 women and children along with the famed chief.
Every ghost town has its tales to tell and Mogollon is no exception. Stories of hilarity and horror haunt the village today, like the silent spectres of the characters that once called this place home. One Harry Hermann was an early settler in town. As the lumber mill owner, he decided to donate the materials necessary to build a jail. Miners, whiskey and revolvers are a potent mix, and a mining town without a jail on a Saturday night was no safe place to be. When the jail was completed, a wagonload of champagne and whiskey were hauled in from Silver City. Hermann imbibed copiously and found himself locked up – the first inmate in his new jail.
Another story is told of an occasion when rumors spread of an impending Indian assault. The entire camp was evacuated but for a couple of miners who hid in some bushes. When a group of Apaches came down the trail, the men’s dog began to growl. So frightened were these settlers of being murdered and scalped, that they choked their dog to death.
Mogollon’s first shipment of gold was sent to the region’s largest town, Silver City, in 1879. By 1911, the camp-turned-town was home to 8,000 people, 14 saloons, five stores, seven restaurants, a theatre, three churches, two hotels and seven houses of ill repute. Well-known commercial enterprises such as Bean Belly Kelly’s General Mercantile and Jimmy Johnson’s Saloon served miners, card sharks, outlaws, madams and business prospectors. By 1915 the camp’s monthly payroll ran between US $50-75,000.00, making it New Mexico’s leading mining district.
Mogollon saw its share of tragedy. In addition to numerous raids from the likes of Geronimo and Victorio, the town endured the ravages of two fires that burned it to the ground, a devastating flu that wiped out whole families, and at least five raging floods that destroyed homes and washed away people. Nonetheless, from its founding to the beginning of World War II, more than US $20 million in gold and more than 18 million ounces of silver were mined in the mountains surrounding Mogollon.
The town saw its final end when gold and silver prices plummeted at the advent of World War II, sending Mogollon and many other New Mexico mining communities into quick decline. Today the village is in a Renaissance of sorts and several shops are open for the public. A visit to Payload Antiques, the Purple Onion Café, the Mogollon Artisans Shop, The Silver Creek Inn or the town museum allows visitors a chance to step back in time and explore the quirky character of the 19th century’s American west.
Winston and Chloride
Due east of Mogollon, across the high peaks of the Gila Wilderness, runs the Geronimo Trail Scenic Byway. This loop of road that cleaves through low mountain passes and broad valleys links a number of historic sites and ghost towns. As with the small villages that dot the Mogollon region, the lands here remain rural and wild with towns retaining the flavor and character of a century ago. It was in this area, in 1883, that America’s most famous Apache Indian, Geronimo, was first arrested. It took over 300 soldiers and seven years to catch him. The Scenic Byway was named to honor Geronimo and the land that he loved.
At the far eastern edge of the trail sit two tiny villages. Winston and Chloride prospered in the 1880s following the discovery of silver chloride ore in the surrounding mountains by Englishman Harry Pye. Neither town is quite as stunning as Mogollon, but both possess a quiet charm, fascinating history and some highly photographable buildings.
Heading west along route 52, our first stop was Winston; a village established in 1881 as a sister community to Chloride. The town’s population peaked several years later at approximately 3,000 residents then quickly declined to between one and two hundred, where it remains today.
Perhaps the most picturesque structure in town is the 1890 schoolhouse, which looks suspiciously like a church and has long since been abandoned to birds and bats. Community entrepreneur Frank Winston’s 19th century carriage house, found along the main street, is a stunning adobe building with unusually sloped roof and tin ornamentation. These two structures stand against a backdrop of sweeping hills and valleys, crumbling homes, rusted rooflines and nearly silent roads.
Each spring, the residents of Winston host a festival for locals and visitors. In addition to bar-b-cues, dances and a horseshoe-pitching contest, attendees can pan for gold or participate in a game of Cow Chip Poker. Gamblers put five dollars into a pot for a chance at guessing which designated square within a fenced pasture one single, well-fed cow will do her bovine business.
During our visit, some of the locals were having a bar-b-cue at the saloon and invited us by for a drink and a meal. While burgers and sausages smoked on charcoal grills, we sipped two-dollar beers and chatted with some old timers. Winston is home to a significant population (169 at last count) due to the mine still in operation just south of town. While flipping burgers and alternately rolling and smoking tobacco, one miner explained the operation. Many of the men folk of Winston mine Zialite, a mineral better known among pet lovers as kitty litter. It is that stink-absorbing gravel found in the homes of the feline-friendly that keeps Winston populated today.
Over low hills and through broad, grass valleys to the west of Winston sits Chloride, a sleepy outpost at the edge of the Black Range Mountains. Chloride may just be the archetypal ghost town, with a miniscule population, buildings in various phases of decay, a colorful history and now, a retired couple who have devoted themselves to saving the town and its past for posterity.
Chloride was once the center of mining activity for what was known as the Apache Mining District. A tour of this one-road settlement makes it difficult to imagine it had been a village of between 2-3,000 people, but at its height during the 1880s and 90s the town boasted three general stores, a hotel, eight saloons, 100 homes, a doctor, a lawyer and even a Chinese laundry. As with all mining camps throughout the region, Chloride sat in the midst of Apache territory and thus, saw its share of raids. In 1881, Indians attacked twice, killing several people including the town founder, Harry Pye, when his gun jammed during a shoot-out.
One of the town’s greater challenges during its early heyday was the lack of women. In fact, women folk were so scarce that in 1882, the city fathers offered free land to the first single woman willing to settle there. The same offer included a gift of land to the first man to father a child in town. Given the number of brothels in Chloride, however, the second offer came with one caveat: the land would be given only if it were known who the father was!
Chloride, like most mining towns, has its resident Hanging Tree. Although no villains ever actually met the gallows there, the 200+-year-old oak was used to discourage public drunkenness – always a challenge in a town of eight saloons and 3,000 (mostly male) residents. Should a drunk become a public nuisance, he would first be dunked in a horse trough and then chained to the tree until he sobered. The tree sits smack in the middle of the road and cannot be missed as you swerve past it toward the center of town.
Today Chloride is home to twelve full-time residents including Don and Donna Edmund who have purchased a number of the old buildings and renovated The Pioneer Store, turning it into a museum. “Our purpose here is to save the town” says Don, “that’s our hobby.” We visited Don and got a personal tour of the museum. The Pioneer kept its doors open until 1923, when the owners boarded it up with all merchandise intact and left town. It was a general store in all senses of the word, with items from food to phones, mining equipment to marbles for sale. The museum, registered on New Mexico’s list of Historic Places, is arranged exactly as the Edmunds found it in 1989, minus “inches of bat crap’ that covered everything.
During its lifespan, Chloride’s richest mine, the Silver Monument, produced approximately US $100,000.00 worth of silver and other ore. In 1893 the US Government switched its currency valuation from the silver to the gold standard. Silver prices dropped as much as 90% that year, resulting in a major decline for many towns like Chloride.
Madrid
On a back road leading south from Santa Fe runs a historic and scenic byway called the Turquoise Trail. It is down this trail that the famous Kit Carson once marched the Navajo Indians on their deadly Long Walk towards incarceration at Fort Sumner. Peoples from pre-history to missionaries to confederate soldiers and outlaws once roamed the area, some of whom were mining for turquoise long before the white man arrived.
Three ghost towns sit near the Santa Fe end of the trail, Golden, Cerrillos and Madrid. While Golden remains undeveloped, Cerrillos and Madrid are enjoying a Renaissance of art, theatre, museums and dining. Of the two, Madrid (pronounced MAA-drid by locals) is by far the more colorful. The town’s history begins in the early 1800s when coal – nearly 30 square miles of it - was discovered in the hills surrounding the narrow valley through which the village is spread. The geology here is unique and found in but two other mines in the world. Veins of both hard and soft coal ran deep into the Madrid Mountains. The ore mined was used primarily for the Santa Fe Railroad to fuel their travels across the continent. The Albuquerque & Cerrillos Coal Company owned the town in its entirety and prospered from the rich exchange, but when coal use declined in the early 1940s, Madrid was quickly abandoned.
In 1954 the company tried to sell the town (buildings, mines, residual hardware and all) for a mere US $250,000.00, but there was not a single taker. Fast forward to the 1970s when hippies and artisans began arriving, purchasing and converting many of the old wooden row houses and company shops into galleries, boutiques and restaurants. Locals today remember a time when Madridians resented intrusions by the curious into their remote mountain hideaway. Stories of secret marijuana patches and unwelcoming residents abound in some circles.
Today, Madrid is said to be home to more artists per capita than in any other town in America. Residents are friendly and welcoming, and the town is a must-see for any visitor to Santa Fe or Albuquerque. In addition to more than 20 commercial shops, restaurants and artist studios, there is an original tavern, a Wild West melodrama and a mining museum to round out the unique and historic character of this ghost town turned artist community.
On any trip through the United States, visiting a ghost town or two is definitely worth your while. While they vary tremendously, most are located in serene settings and the few (if any) inhabitants tend to be welcoming and friendly. The lonely lands in which they sit and the relics that remain give visitors a chance to head back in time to America’s legendary Wild West.
Again, you painted a picture of what is and what was! New Mexico has always been on my travel "wish" list ----