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Afoot in the Boot Heel
Last updated on Friday, January 03, 2003
When concrete, crime and commotion drive you away in search of renewal, a trek to New Mexico's upper boot heel can cleanse the spirit of sludge and jitters. Out in the desert, your only pressure is a gust of wind flapping your clothes and tousling your tresses. Your music, piped over sun-drenched airwaves, is the hum of the wind looping through mountains, carrying celestial strains of songbirds out through the valley and back again to your senses.
Train near Lordsburg Photo by Carla DeMarco Out here, down-to-earth folks take life a few paces slower. Settling in, you breathe deeper, expanding toward the horizon, beginning to understand why a discouraging word would seldom be heard.
Lordsburg and Ghostowns
In the quiet old railroad town of Lordsburg at Interstate 10 near NM 90 and US 70, you can find plenty of motels and R.V. parks for a boot heel base camp. Locals say El Charro, downtown, serves "the best Mexican food in town." Though this community of 3,000 saw spunkier days before the freeway arrived, it still knows how to frolic with annual events like the Land Sail Races in March or April, Railroad Mining Days and Rockamania rockhounders' festival in May, 4th of July celebrations, the Hidalgo County Fair in August, and a Gem and Mineral Show with guided rock trips in October.
Two and one-half miles southwest of Lordsburg lies the restored ghost town of Shakespeare, the ghost town in New Mexico that may present the most authentic picture of Western life in the 1880s. With as many as 3,000 inhabitants at one time, it was once the largest town in the region. It began as a small settlement on the stage and emigrant trail to California and peaked in the 1870's as a silver and diamond mining town.
The dusty townsite's owners have toiled to preserve the original buildings and history. Guided tours through the adobe buildings are still being conducted about four days a month, and four times a year a talented crew of actors stage lively re-enactments of events leading up to famous gunfights and hangings.
About 15 miles west of Lordsburg off I-10, Steins (pronounced Steens) may be New Mexico's most accessible ghost town; it lies just yards off Exit 3. Steins was settled in the 1900's as a Southern Pacific Railroad town. It derives its name from a mid-nineteenth century calvary officer who was killed by Apaches in nearby Doubtful Canyon.
In its heyday from 1905 to 1945, Steins' nearly three dozen buildings bustled with the activity of up to 1,000 people. When Southern Pacific switched from steam to diesel, the railway station closed, and the town began its slow journey into ghost town decay.
In 1988, after checking on some retirement property in Road Forks, N.M., Larry Link decided to stop in at neighboring Steins. He liked it so much, Link went home to his wife, Linda, in Phoenix and said, “Honey let's buy a ghost town!” Steins has never been the same since. The couple is slowly transforming the town into a turn-of-the-century museum.
Prospector's Paradise
If you take I-10 West to Exit 5, you can cruise south 11 miles on NM 80 until you see Granite Gap Ghost Mining Camp on the left. Here, the crystalline sky's boundless blue is streaked sporadically with the bright blur of a hummingbird. Across the landscape, ocotillo, prickly pear, yucca, agave and mesquite form a muti-textured mosaic splattered with color. Bighorn sheep range on the craggy Peloncillos, and Gila monsters, javelina, jaguars and even mountain lions reside as reticent neighbors.
Last year, prospectors Mike Froehlich and Laura Levesque, alias Klondike Mike and Jackass Jill, bought 62 acres encompassing Granite Mountain - a rocky mound honeycombed with turn-of-the-century tunnels - and the flattened old town site of Granite Gap. The town was inhabited by about 2,000 people during the height of local silver and lead extraction. On a guided tour deep inside the mountain, you can explore an old silver mine or see where cattle rustlers hid from the law. For a fee, you can treasure hunt and collect minerals all day. You can go on a botanical walk, take a donkey ride, pan for gold, or learn the art of making Indian arrowheads. You can camp on the grounds, in caves, in the mine, or on top of the mountain. Dry RV camping and semi-truck parking are available.
Upcoming projects include a mining artifacts museum and camping cabins resembling miners' shacks. "Of course we'll clean out the rattlesnakes and tarantulas before they go in," comforts Laura.
Rodeo roundup
Continuing south on NM 80 past golden grasses and yucca-flecked mountains about 25 miles, you'll reach the rejuvenated ghost town of Rodeo, population 200. Once a railroad town and now a community of ranchers, farmers and artists, Rodeo features a few fun stops. A 100-year-old whitewashed adobe that was a church in its previous incarnation has been transformed into the elegant Chiricahua Guild and Gallery, an artists' cooperative housing some fine local work, including homemade gourmet goodies.
At "Kathy's," you can buy gifts, fireworks, and a local history book researched and produced by Kathy's husband, Dave. But the store's coup de grace is its collection of more than 2,000 license plates, many of which are for sale. About a thousand line the upper walls, creating a colorful way to cover the cracks.
The Rodeo Grocery serves up breakfast and lunch, gas, sundries and some great-looking cinnamon rolls. You can catch an evening meal at the rustic Rodeo Tavern, where owner Lois Bernard won't let you go away hungry, and there's no printed menu on purpose. "Out here, people don't get to see each other much, so I just stand there and talk," she explains. In 1994, she and her husband, Bob, left their fancy house and jobs in the city to buy the turn-of-the-century building and establish a comfortable hub where kids can play pool and "there's no bar fights, gambling, or spitting on the floor."
"We want to be somebody someday," says Lois, plopping her pictures of Disneyland down in front of some cowboys. In this tight-knit community, they are. Fanciful Old West cartoon murals painted in the 1950's by Charles Campbell adorn the back room. "A guy from Santa Fe offered us $10,000 for one section," says Bob. "He said it's worth more than diamonds."
Rodeo's close proximity to world-class birding area, Portal, Arizona, adds to its tourist appeal. Anabell Hall operates the town's only overnight inn, a cozy chalet aptly called "The Cottage" that can sleep three. Here, in season, guests can pick a breakfast of strawberries in the front yard before trekking off to revel in nature.
The bird's the word
Although Portal isn't officially part of New Mexico's boot heel, the 12-mile drive northwest from Rodeo is negligible enough - and the destination worthy enough - to merit its inclusion in a boot heel excursion. After turning off 133 into Portal, shortly past the Portal Store and Cafe where they sell more kinds of bird feeders than candy bars, the road narrows. Rose-pink tufts of grass and wildflowers pop up along the shoulder. Ahead, red rhyolytic mountains, pocked with caves, rise to nearly 10,000 feet above a basin of Pines, Junipers, Oaks and Sycamores. In a matter of twenty minutes you have left the arid Chihuahuan Desert and and entered cool Cave Creek Canyon in the Coronado National Forest. From here you can drive deep into the Chiricahua Mountains and see why scientists the world over study the area's bountiful plant and animal diversity. A journey from the base to the top transits five of the western United States' life zones. About four miles ahead, birders, hikers and other naturalists can stay at the American Museum of Natural History's Southwestern Research Station when space isn't occupied by scientists. Other accommodations noted along the canyon road were the Portal Peak Lodge, Cave Creek Ranch, and Cathedral Rock Lodge.
Caves in mountain near Portal, Arizona Photo by Carla DeMarco. Gems at the End of the Earth
Hopping on NM 9, traveling east over flatlands about 40 miles to the intersection of NM 81, you pass creosote, locoweed, and wildflowers. The Animas and Little Hachet Mountains carve a comely horizon, and a few tumbling tumbleweeds lull any lingering tension. When you reach your goal, Hachita, ., you might think you've arrived at the End of the Earth, but actually, the place can be quite engaging.
Founded in 1902 as a railroad town, Hachita is now a ranching community. Its myriad abandoned buildings bear witness to a population that once peaked at 200 in the early 1900's and has since diminished by three quarters. Hachita (actually New Hachita) was named after what is now dubbed Old Hachita, a ghost mining town 7.3 miles west.
The first Hachita took shape around 1875 with the establishment of silver, lead, and copper mines. By 1884, the town reported a population of 300, with three saloons, two general stores, several mining companies and a steam smelting works. By 1890, only 25 men remained. Old Hachita may be Southern New Mexico's most overlooked ghost town, with several buildings still standing among crumbling rock structures and open mine shafts. While you're out exploring, turn south on N.M. 81 to see a lovely historic Catholic Church, and ask directions to Apache Mine, an old calvary camp near Hachita.
Hachita offers gas and plenty of RV camping. You'll find overnight accommodations and food at Larson's Boarding House, the site of the original Hachita Bar and former Gray Ranch company house. The Gray Ranch, which started in Lordsburg and stretched to the Mexican border, was purchased by the Nature Conservancy who sold it to the Animas Foundation.
At the Hachita Liquor Saloon, ex-ranch hand, L.G. May, can plug you into a pool tournament or chicken team roping. If you just want to just sit, he'll show you his old Gray Ranch payroll ledger and narrate some wild local history. What's the most interesting thing in Hachita? "Me!" he exclaims, with a big western grin.
Heading home
You can loop back to Lordsburg via 146 N. to I-10 and stop in Separ (population 5) for gifts, gas, and a good homecooked meal in the Windmeal Diner, or you can head back on Highway 9 by way of Playas and Animas, two small, homespun communites based on local mining activity.
If open roads and plain living can unlock the door labeled, "De-stress," hopefully by now, you've traveled well past the threshold.
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