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Sunny days, star-filled nights and a few ghosts
By TOM NELSON, Hachita
When wandering through the southwest we often come across the remains of a city that is no more. Around Lordsburg there are many such places that were there to ship cattle, or ore from the mines.
My favorite ghost town in New Mexico is Old Hachita Just an hour south of Lordsburg off of highway 9 this little town has always amazed me.
About 1875 this little mining camp began to take shape around the silver, lead, copper mines there with names like Hornet, King, and American National.
By 1884 it boasted a population of three hundred and had three saloons, two general stores and several mining companies.
By 1890 the town began to dwindle into abandonment and right after the turn of the century the railroad came in and the whole townsite moved northeast and Old Hachita's buildings began to become vacant.
Nowadays there is no one there except visitors and an occasional coyote.
Many buildings are still standing and invite the visitor to question what happened here, where did they go and how did they live.
Many old headframes remain over open mineshafts and one has to stand back and wonder in amazement at the amount of manual labor it must have required to live here at the turn of the century. Trying to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter and keeping enough water on hand to keep from dehydrating must have been a never-ending task. Especially when one considers the amount of back breaking labor they did in the mines to earn a living. I once took an "Old Timer" up there who had worked in mines all his life and he took one look at the tunnels and said "this must have been hell.
When one stands out there in Old Hachita and listens to the wind whistling through the brush you can begin to understand just how tough our grand parents and great grandparents really were.
The old blacksmith shop is still standing you can tell it by the twin copulas on the roof and there is an old powder magazine as well as an old mill building. Many houses stand in disrepair some only shells of what they once were.
Old Hachita has two little known sisters within ten miles of her.
One is German Camp it had several buildings and the old ore chutes and tunnels are still there and some tunnels still have the old cart tracks where men would struggle to push the carts laden with ore out of the belly of mother earth. We know they pushed them by hand the tunnels are not tall enough for a horse or mule.
The other is Sylvanite named after a gold ore found there. Not much remains of Sylvanite just some foundations, mine tunnels and lost dreams.
When visiting these amazing places remember to take only pictures and leave only footprints by doing so the generations following us will be able to come here sit and ponder the accomplishments of those who came before us.
There are dozens of ghost towns in the Lordsburg area and if you plan on visiting ghost towns around New Mexico and you want information feel free to contact the author Tom Nelson at 505-436-2751 or email to hachita@vtc.net
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