February 23, 2008 Entry

Today we took the car and rode to Silver City, New Mexico and Pinos Altos, about 40 miles from where we are staying in Deming.

Silver City is a town in Grant County, New Mexico, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 10,545. It is the county seat of Grant County[1]. The city is the home of Western New Mexico University.

The site of Silver City was originally known as San Vicente de la Ciénega (the Marsh of St. Vincent), and prior to Anglo settlement, the valley served as an Apache campsite. With the arrival of a wave of American prospectors in the 1860s, however, the face of the valley soon changed.

Silver City was founded in the summer of 1870, shortly after the discovery of silver ore deposits by Captain John M. Bullard at Chloride Flats, located on the hill just west of the farm of Captain Bullard and his brother James. Following the silver strike, Captain Bullard laid out the streets of the new Silver City on the former farm, and a bustling tent city quickly sprang to life. Although the trajectory of Silver City's development was to be different from the hundreds of other mining boom towns established during the same period, Captain Bullard himself never lived to see even the beginnings of permanence, as he was killed in a confrontation with Apache raiders less than a year later, on February 23, 1871. Mrs. Lettie B. Morrill, in a talk given to the Daughters of the American Revolution chapter in Silver City on September 19, 1908, stated, "John Bullard was placed in the first grave dug in Silver City, having been killed while punishing the Indians for an attack upon the new town; the brothers were Prospectors about the country for many years. The last one left for the old home about 1885, saying, ‘It is only a matter of time until the Indians get me if I stay here.’"

It was also known as the starting point for many expeditions hunting treasures such as the Lost Adams Diggings.Old mines, camps, and shacks dot the hills, and it is rich in Old West History.

Pinos Altos (Tall Pines) is located about six miles north of Silver City on NM Highway 15. The townsite is located along the Continental Divide at an elevation of 7,067 feet at the southern end of the Pinos Altos Mountains. Pinos Altos is a very old mining town; it was Grant County's first county seat.

Gold was first discovered by the Spanish and Mexican miners. The Americans discovered gold in 1859/60. Hank Smith, a German immigrant, described how a placer deposit was found on Bear Creek in 1859, and other prospectors of the Col. Snively party talk of the big find on Bear Creek in 1860 and the naming of Birchville, Pinos Altos' first name, after the prospector who found the first "color."

Pinos Altos' history includes a short time under the flag of the Confederacy when the Confederate States of America invaded the Union Territory of New Mexico. The Confederate legacy was a brief period from February, 1861 until June of 1862. The Southerners were defeated at the Battle of Glorieta Pass east of Santa Fe in March of 1862. The Confederate soldiers were routed back to El Paso by the Union forces from Colorado.

The miners and the mining camp at Pinos Altos were under constant threat from the Apaches and an occasional band of Navajos. The miners and the Indians were not good neighbors. In the spring of 1860 Chief Mangas Coloradas was invited for a "friendly" visit to the Pinos Altos mining camp. The treacherous miners tied him to a tree and lashed him unmercifully with their bullwhips. When the chief recovered from his wounds he enlisted his son-in-law's help. His son-in-law was Chief Cochise, and revenge was an important factor in Chiricahua Apache warfare.

Captain Thomas Marston of the Arizona Scouts led a company of volunteers in defense of Pinos Altos in the revengeful Apache War of September 27, 1861. Captain Marston and many others on both sides died in this battle. The combined forces of the Apaches some 400 strong under the leadership of Cochise and Mangas Coloradas convinced most of the miners that gold was not worth living in fear of the Apaches, and Birchville was nearly abandoned.

The California Volunteers of the Union forces known as the "California Column," under the command of Brigadier General James H. Carleton arrived in June 1862. Upon arriving General Carleton learned that Pinos Altos was under siege and surrounded by Apaches, being slowly starved out. He immediately sent two wagon loads of provisions with soldiers to relieve the beleaguered town. Realizing the importance of the mines at Pinos Altos, General Carleton ordered General Joseph West to establish a military fort near the Gila River. Fort West was established on January 24, 1863 (about two miles south of Cliff) with four companies of troops to protect Pinos Altos from hostile Indians.

Before Captain Thomas Marston's death he had sold his share of the Pacific Mine to his brother Virgil in the spring of 1861. Virgil never left Pinos Altos with the other miners; he continued mining and developed the Pacific lode. In 1866, he charted the Pinos Altos Mining Company under the laws of the Territory of New Mexico. A stamp mill of 15 stamps, each weighing 700 pounds, were hauled by ox-drawn wagons from St. Louis, Missouri, and erected on site by the company. The Pacific lode crosses the Continental Divide and is rich in silver, gold, lead, zinc and copper. The Pacific Mine alone produced over a million dollars in copper and gold. Sometime after the miners left in 1861 and returned in 1866 the town was renamed Pinos Altos, the original Mexican village name. After the Legal Tender silver mine in San Vincente de La Cienaga was discovered in 1870 Pinos Altos soon lost the county seat to the town renamed Silver City.

The mines at Pinos Altos and the smelter at Silver City, which had belonged to the estate of Senator Hearst, were sold to the Comanche Mining and Smelting Company in 1903. In 1905 it was announced that the company would build a railroad between their smelter in Silver City and the mines in Pinos Altos. A 24 inch narrow-gauge Shay locomotive railroad (about two-thirds of the normal width of a narrow gauge) was completed in April of 1906 between Silver City and Pinos Altos a rail distance of 12 miles. The rail operated only for a short time; the company went bankrupt in the fall of 1907.

Click on this picture for a slideshow of some of the things we saw today.

Welcome!

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