Day One of the Atomic Age, I imagine during the eighty mile drive from Alamogordo to Trinity Site, New Mexico, was much like today except for the early morning rain postponing the experiment from 4:00 to 5:30 a.m. Darkness filled the elongated valley bordered by mountains of hard granite, solidified lava flows and eroded mesas.

The rain was undoubtedly welcomed by the sparse yet hardy vegetation decorating the valley floor. The rare summer moisture provided relief from the searing, relentless desert heat – a brief chance to rejoice and replenish moments before disappearring in an unnatural and previously unknown manner. Except for the sound of our 200 vehicle convoy headed to Ground Zero, Day One was sunny, windless and serene, just like today.

In a valley twenty or so million years of age, change comes slowly. A picture taken sixteen million years ago would look very much like a picture taken a million years later. On Day One, July 16, 1945, at Trinity Site’s Ground Zero, change came quickly.

Many visitors to the twice-annual viewing of Trinity Site will be disappointed. There isn’t much to see. The fifteen foot deep and 400 foot wide crater created by the world’s first atomic detonation has been filled. The tower from which the bomb was dropped virtually disintegrated from the blast; only a small display of one concrete footing remains. The earth supports life once again:  Wild desert grasses, miniature tumbleweeds, small yellow flowers and bachelor buttons grow where many expected scorched earth.

The replica Fat Man bomb casing.
Photo by Jim Reed

Along the far fence are historical displays of black and white photos taken on Day One. A flatbed truck displays a replica of Fat Man, a bomb casing similar to the ones used less than a month later to drop atomic bombs on Japan. A shelter has been created to protect a small portion of the original crater and to display Trinitite, a glass-like, jade green material found in the crater, newly created radioactive stone fused by the bombs caramelizing of the desert sand. The massive light and heat created by the blast remains incomprehensible to today’s visitor. One of the contributing scientists, Dr. Phillip Morrison, said, “Suddenly, not only was there a bright light, but where we were ten miles away, there was the heat of the sun on our faces . . . Then, only minutes later, the real sun rose and again you felt the same heat to the face from the sunrise. So, we saw two sunrises.”

Most obvious and impressionable to the visitor is the Ground Zero Monument, a lava stone and concrete obelisk erected to commemorate the exact site where history, for good or bad, changed. Children and families stand in typical rigid, smiling tourist poses and have their pictures taken. One man touches the lava stone briefly, removes his hand and examines it, as if expecting it to change from the area’s mild radioactivity. Some stand silently and gaze, mildly dazed; silent thoughts and questions are easily read in their faces. “Was this a good thing to have happened? Is the world better off for this experiment? It was inevitable, eventually someone was to have done it, if not us.”

Two of today’s visitors are Linda and Ron Stevenson of Decatur, Tennessee. While visiting Linda’s brother in Alamogordo they took advantage of the semi-annual event and joined the eighty mile motor convoy from Alamogordo to Trinity Site. Linda is surprised that radiation levels are low enough at Trinity Site to allow public visitation. Her interest piqued, she plans an in-depth study of the literature she was given in Alamogordo. For now she admits to having, “a lot of mixed feelings and emotions” about the site and the history created here. “My husband and I expected the area to be devoid of vegetation. We are surprised.”

Reverend Brian and wife Melinda Hodge and their three children of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico made the journey to Trinity Site, entering White Sands Missile Range from Stallion Gate to the north where a vehicle convoy is not necessary. When asked if she understands what happened here, eight year-old daughter Jasmine answers, “They blew off a bomb here, a Fat Man bomb.” Reverend Brian provides the thought, “This experiment possibly saved many lives by preventing a United States land invasion of Japan. I’m not sure if the world is safer today because of it.”

There may not be much to see at Trinity Site today, but the feelings, visions and impressions of the experiment and history created here provoke thought deep within the observer and are indelible.

Trinity Site, New Mexico, a part of White Sands Missile Range, is open from 9:00 am to 2:00 p.m. on the first Saturday of April and October.

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On a time line, the two and one-half year operation (1857-1861) of the Butterfield Overland Mail was but a  flash in the history of transportation in the United States.  But this short-lived operation captured and held the imagination of Americans because it stitched together the growing country from sea to sea.

Map of Butterfield Mail Stage Route.  To test the system, a mailbag was transferred from Tipton, Missouri to San Francisco, California in 24 days.

Prior to 1857, there was no organized, commercial system of transportation west of the Mississippi River.  Although many people had crossed the United States by land, the word “overland” had not come into the American vocabulary.  On the historical scale, the Butterfield Overland Mail was symbolic of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which held that it was the duty and right of the United States to expand across the continent.

Adding to the national pride engendered by this symbolism, was unadulterated awe – still felt today – at the rapidity with which the endeavor got under way.  The backing of the federal government was obtained, trails were laid out, stations were set up and manned, coaches and wagons were manufactured and put into operation, and the many obstacles of travel across long stretches of pure wilderness were surmounted.

Several names were associated with the enterprise, but the major credit goes to one man, New  Yorker businessman and financier John Butterfield.  After much political log-rolling by Congress, he obtained a $600,000 government contract to establish and run the Overland Mail Company from St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California.  Butterfield had already proven his ability in organization and administration by erecting the first telegraph line between New York City and Buffalo.  He had built and managed several passenger stagecoach lines and had constructed the first steam railroad and first street horse railway system in Utica, New York, a city of which he also became the mayor.  The American Express Company owes its formation to Butterfield.  Here was a man who was uniquely qualified to spearhead the first transcontinental stage line, stretching 2,800 miles from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast.

A Butterfield Stage coach with extra back seat. Photo courtesy Bill Kelly.

The building and the short life of the Butterfield Overland Mail were dictated by important events in history.  The Mexican War from 1846 to 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 added territory that needed to be incorporated into this country.

Gold was discovered in California in 1848, and California became a state in 1850.  The flood of gold-seekers heading for the Pacific Coast, along with the U.S. Mail, embarked from the East Coast and sailed to the Isthmus of Panama.  Here passengers and cargo went ashore, crossed the mountainous strip of Panama, and took another ship up the West Coast of Central America, past Mexico, and thence to California.

Year-round operation of the Butterfield Overland Mail dictated the choice of a route through the  milder climate of the southern tier of states and territories.  This choice, by routing the trail through Texas, led to its short life as the Civil War commenced.  Confederate sympathizers threatened violence to the line even before Texas seceded from the United States.  Union troops were pulled out of the Southwest to engage in battle in the East.  Some Indians further endangered the stage line by taking advantage of the lack of military strength in the area.

In 1861, operation of the twice-weekly mail and passenger service was effectively stopped. In establishing the service, Butterfield had said, “Remember boys, nothing on God’s earth must stop the United States mail!”  And nothing did.  During its two and one-half years of service, every eastbound and westbound stage arrived within the 25-day contract time.  Sometimes the trips were reduced to 21 days.  It was an unqualified success.

The beginning of the Butterfield Line was officially in St. Louis.  However, since the railroad extended west a short distance from the Mississippi, passengers and mail traveled on the train as far as Tipton where they encountered the first of the Butterfield Overland’s stations and a new coach.  This vehicle was described by a reporter, the only through passenger on the inaugural westbound journey, as “quite expensively built.”  From Tipton, the route lay southwest through a corner of Arkansas, cutting diagonally across what was then Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and across a broad expanse of Texas.  A swing up the east side of the Pecos River found a favorable crossing point at Pope’s Camp, then it was north along the Rio Grande into La Mesilla. From there, the route ran westward on a line roughly paralleling present-day I-10.  Stations were spaced from 15 to 20 miles apart.  In the arid terrain of then-territorial New Mexico, the stations had to be spaced further apart, either at existing springs or where wells were successfully dug, until the way reached the Gila River and followed it into California.  There it wound northward to San Francisco.

Even the road through settled country west of St. Louis and through California was rocky and rutted.  By the time the Llano Estacado was reached, the passengers were riding in and on a “celerity wagon” which was set on leather straps rather than springs.  Because stages traveled  day and night, these wagons converted to a sleeping car at night.  Each wagon had three seats, which folded down to make one bed which accommodated from four to ten persons.

In long stretches, the road on which these wagons traveled had only recently been hacked out of the wilderness by crews of surveyors, engineers, workers and teams of draft animals, supervised by Butterfield.  Passengers reported that root snags and boulders were treacherous for the unwary.

Overall, though, the Butterfield Trail was an accomplishment to excite wonder and pride.  John Butterfield had to build about 150 stations and corrals, dig wells and cisterns, grade fording sites, open new roads or improve old ones, establish supply bases and repair shops, purchase and distribute 1200 horses and 600 mules, procure several thousand tons of hay and fodder, build hundreds of coaches, and hire 750 to 800 men.

At river crossings, if there was a convenient passage, the wagons forded the river.  At night the lanterns carried by the wagons were augmented by a man riding horseback, also carrying a lantern, who guided the drivers across the fords.  Where the rivers were too deep or swift, there were ferries – rafts which were poled across.  At the crossing of Red River – the boundary between Texas and the Indian Territory – the ferry business was run by a very prosperous Chickasaw Indian named Benjamin Franklin Colbert.  The man owned 25 slaves, and used these road gangs not only to pole the ferry across the river, but to keep the roads leading in to Colbert’s Ferry in good condition.

The only through passenger on the first westbound stage was Waterman L. Ormsby, a correspondent for the New York Herald.  His stories, mailed back to the paper and published in six issues, were later published as a book.  Other passengers and some of the many employees of the Butterfield Overland Mail have left reports of conditions of travel along the way.  All describe the stations as meant for utility not comfort.  According to one passenger, the floors were “much like the ground outside, only not nearly so clean.”

Usually ten minutes were allowed for a stop at the stations, with only a few providing accommodations for feeding passengers.  When the horses or mules had been changed, the stage was underway again.  The wagons did stop morning, noon, and night for meals.

Almost everyone agreed the food was abominable.  Ormsby said, “…the fare, though rough, is better than could be expected so far from civilized districts.  It consists of bread, tea, and fried steaks of bacon, venison, antelope, or mule flesh – the latter tough enough.  Milk, butter, vegetables were only met with towards the two ends of the trip.”  He reported another meal of shortcake, coffee, dried beef and raw onions.  Often there were not enough plates or tin cups to serve the passengers.

The fares for passengers were set at $100 from San Francisco east, but $200 from St. Louis or Memphis going west.  This amount was to be paid in gold.  The fare did not include meals which ranged from 75 cents to a dollar.  The baggage allowance was 40 pounds per passenger, a figure that is echoed in the baggage allowance on international flights today.

Passengers were, in a way, a burden and the passenger traffic was never heavy.  The Butterfield Overland Mail was meant to carry the U.S. Mail.  In the month of July 1860, 6020 pieces of mail were carried from San Francisco.  The service was so reliable that the British government sent official correspondence destined for British Columbia by the Butterfield Overland Mail.

To remove temptation from the outlaw element along the way, Butterfield refused to carry payrolls or other valuables.  There were plenty of other dangers – stages overturned, untrained animals were used to pull the coaches.  Some of the drivers and conductors got “on the job training.”  Passengers had a difficult time sleeping the first week.  After that, they seemed to settle in, and their biggest complaint was boredom.

Today, there are a few physical reminders of this undertaking.  The building which houses La Posta restaurant in La Mesilla, south of Las Cruces, was used as a station.  Foundations of the station at Fort Bowie in Arizona are extant.  In some places that have not been paved over by highways, there are still traces of the trail.

It is in the memory of Americans that the Butterfield Overland Mail lives.  The postmaster’s report said of it, “…with energy, skill and perseverance the vast wilderness was first penetrated by the mail stages of the United States and the two great oceans united by the longest and most important land route ever established in any country.” This may seem like hyperbole now.  But at that time, his statement was not an exaggeration.

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The mine encroaching on Santa Rita, circa 1915. Photo courtesy Silver City Museum

"The Santa Rita is, perhaps, the most famous mine in Western America, for it was here that the techniques of copper mining were first developed in the Southwest." So wrote Carey McWilliams in his 1949 book, North From Mexico.

Santa Rita – some 15 miles east of Silver City, site of today’s mine and yesterday’s town – is in a region of greasewood flatlands, of yucca patches and carpets of creosote brush, with an offering of cacti in many varieties. Wildlife is abundant: canine and feline mammals, reptiles and a bird congress created to make sweet an ornithologist’s dream. Hazy mountains humpback on all horizons, abrupt arroyos cut into the hard desert earth. But in spite of the wildness, the loneliness, the feeling of things far away from everywhere, the air is sharp with industry, for in its midst the Kennecott enterprise is ever burrowing, digging, loading, hauling, milling and smeltering the precious substance – ripping out the Santa Rita as mining men have for all but 16 years of the last two centuries.

But where is the town of Santa Rita?

You won’t find its location on any up-to-date map because it isn’t there anymore. They just moved it out of the way to satisfy the strip mine’s ravenous Glory Hole. But there was a town of Santa Rita, once upon a time, a typical Southwestern mining community that held its frontier flavor to the end.

Only on the pages of history does Santa Rita remain as the pioneer of mining methods in the Southwest, flavored with early Spanish New Mexico, challenge and valor, greed and treachery – all the dust of the rawhide West.

Early in the first year of the 1800’s, the Spanish governor in Santa Fe ordered the military to take drastic measures against the Apache Indians, then the most troublesome of all tribes. Every Apache man, woman and child was to be killed by any method and no mercy extended. A garrison was established at Janos, in Chihuahua, not far below the present Mexican border – one of many in the very heart of the Apache country.

The mine encroaching on Santa Rita, circa 1915. Photo courtesy Silver City Museum

Among the officers at Janos was Lieutenant Colonel Jose Manuel Carrasco. While scouting the Rio Mimbres not far from the garrison with a troop of cavalry, he met a defiant band of Apaches armed and painted for war. In a skirmish a number of the band were killed, and a few taken captive. For some reason, Carrasco spared the life of one warrior in the band, actually befriended him and let him escape. In gratitude the Indian gave the colonel a token of gratitude – small in the palm of the hand but of value beyond reckoning to the eye of the Spaniard: an arrowpoint chiseled out of the purest copper. When questioned, the Indian told of an outcropping of this metal far up the Mimbres toward the snowy mountains known to the Spaniards as the Pinos Altos. Furthermore, the Indian said, the place could be easily identified. A hill with a peculiar rock formation rose directly above, one known today as Ben Moore Mountain. From there came the arrow point Carrasco held in his hand.

Jose Carrasco knew copper, could measure a bonanza should he ever meet up with one. He was born in Spain on the Rio Tinto, a place famed for its copper mines. Now in 1800, he realized that if he searched for the location, he would find a terrain in New Mexico similar to that he had known in his youth. It was time now to quit the army.

Carrasco resigned and with 24 companions left Janos for the upper Mimbres. He readily found the location described by the grateful Apache, and then returned to Mexico to look for backers. In Chihuahua City, he aroused the interest of Don Manuel Francisco Elguea, a prominent banker. Together they obtained a land grant from the Spanish government and named it Criadero de Cobre – Nursery of Copper. The miners they employed erected a village for themselves and called it Santa Rita del Cobre.

Elguea contracted with the government to provide copper for coinage. Southward from Santa Rita the Chihuahua train ran 400 miles, and along the route went crudely smeltered copper to be melted into bars, carried by muleback and on oxcarts. The journey was a cruel one through Apache territory and over rugged terrain under a death-dealing summer sun. To provide labor for the mine, the government established a penal colony at Santa Rita. During that period Carrasco sold his share to Elguea and departed the scene with nothing more to be heard of him.

By 1805, 600 men were employed at Santa Rita. With their families they gave size to the new community. Shafts were sunk and crude ladders rawhided together for descent and ascent. The ore was brought to the surface in tenates, crude leather bags strapped to the shoulder of men the miners called tenateros. The Elgueas built a small but sufficient smelter and kept a packmule train always ready to carry the product southward.

On arrival in Chihuahua the copper sold for 65 cents a pound. It was deemed necessary that the impoverished peon population have copper coinage, and through that necessity the Elgueas made a fortune.

Don Francisco Elguea died in 1809 and the mine was worked by his widow until 1822. Nowhere else was copper found of such high quality. After further refining in Chihuahua, relays of up to 100 pack mules, each loaded with 300 pounds, carried it down the Camino Real to the Royal Mint in Mexico City.

Business district east of Santa Rita, 1919 Photo courtesy Silver City Museum

In 1825, Don Juan Ortiz was in charge of operations for the Elguea estate when the first Americans arrived. They were the trappers Sylvester Pattie and his son. Their trapline was set along the Gila River and they were familiar with all that was happening at Santa Rita. Pattie negotiated a successful partnership with Ortiz, who apparently left the scene (history does not tell us what happened to him), and it seemed that Pattie would be lord and master of Santa Rita. But the devil works his mischief in the happiest of circles. A trusted scoundrel in his employ made a sudden exit, taking with him $30,000 in working capital, never to be seen again. Bankrupt, Pattie went back to the trapline collecting furs.

Then came an honest and able man, Robert McKnight, who worked the property from 1826 to 1837. At the close of his tenure an act of treachery occurred at Santa Rita, one so villainous that it was to affect the lives and properties of all settlers, both Mexican and American, who resided within the Apache tribal range – a huge area in New Mexico, west Texas, Arizona, Chihuahua and Sonora.

On an afternoon in 1837, a ruthless band of traders led by James Johnson arrived in Santa Rita. Knowing that the Mexican government still offered a bounty for any Apache taken dead or alive – an offer ignored by most settlers – Johnson and his group made a pact with some Mexicans at Santa Rita to rid New Mexico of the "Apache menace."

Keeping the plot from McKnight and his American staff, Johnson arranged for a trading meet – a grand gathering of Apaches and Mexicans near the Santa Rita mine. Juan Jose, chief of the Mimbreno Apaches, was the chosen guest of honor. The traders also hoped that Jose would bring Mangas Coloradas, a subchief. Second to Cochise, Mangas Coloradas was the greatest of Apache leaders and the most ruthless. However, up to that point, the Apaches had always made friendly visits to the mine to trade and to beg. Their war had long been with the Mexicans, never forgetting the extermination order given by the Spanish governor in Santa Fe some 40 years before.

But Johnson had in mind two scalps of such quality as to command an extra bounty when delivered to the garrison at Janos.

The party was everything promised. Objects of trade were laid out in an open space among the hills, and the feast of roasted game and bread, the favorite Apache diet, was stacked like cordwood on spread-out hides. Indians and Mexicans mingled at the banquet with excitement growing rampant as the trade goods were handled. Later, there would gambling, perhaps. But no intoxicants. McKnight was emphatic about that when he was told of the celebration already planned. He praised Johnson for his generous move to build harmony with the Apaches.

As this was purely a Mexican-Apache affair, Mcknight and his few Americans stayed away. Juan Jose and Mangas Coloradas sat together watching the show, stoic with the dignity their social status commanded. There were women attending, some with their very young in cradleboards of wood and buckskin.

Johnson’s voice was loud above the festivities, encouraging all to enjoy themselves, full of good humor. However, a few of Johnson’s trappers were absent – busy on a hillside overlooking the gala scene. A howitzer was concealed in the dense brush with ample ammunition ready for use. Johnson gave a signal the miners moved away form the stacks of food and trade goods. Only the Apaches were bunched together, gorging themselves and inspecting the treasures.

The howitzer roared, quivering the hills, followed by a blast of pistol and rifle fire. Havoc overtook the sunbright afternoon. Juan Jose was numbered among the many dead. A few Apaches made their escape, among them Mangas Coloradas.

Throughout the Apache region, runners carried word of the slaughter. In the quiet hills about Santa Rita, Mangas Coloradas, skilled in the art of blood-for-blood retaliation, went about the business of revenge. A planned act of treachery had brought on actual war, one that would last for almost half a century.

Johnson, of course, did not collect his prize scalps. He miraculously made his escape, but nearly all his trapper friends were caught, tortured and killed. He made his way through the heart of Apache land and on to California, where he died in poverty. McKnight, who made a fortune from the mine, managed to get through the Apache cordon with his American friends. Now only the Mexican miners and their families were left to keep Santa Rita alive.

But for how long?

The scattered Mimbreno Apaches were gathered together – and the slaughter began. The first to taste vengeance was a party of 22 trappers camped on the Gila, every man killed, the bodies mutilated. Benjamin Wilson along with two trappers met up with Apache warriors east of Santa Rita. The trappers were tortured to death, but Wilson got away.

Although Wilson’s trappers had been left for the buzzards, their deaths were speedier than the sort that threatened the 400 men, women and children who stayed on at Santa Rita. Day and night they were aware of Indian eyes watching from the hills. Devoutly religious, the people kept themselves in constant prayer. Their only hope was the long supply train due to arrive from Chihuahua. Never had it failed to reach its destination. It was comprised of trailing ox wagons, carts, pack mules, burros, all laden with foodstuffs, clothing; tools for the shaft and smelter, and above all, ammunition for the pistols and rifles.

Hunters ventured out, but never far from the village, and brought home venison, bear and wild turkey. All the while the staple food supply was dwindling, the ammunition was running low. Each sunrise brought new hope that this day would see the arrival of the supply train, but always the sun faded into twilight leaving only bitter disappointment and fear.

When a few fearless young men suggested they go down the trail to find the train, their offer brought protest. If any were to leave Santa Rita, then all must go – every man, woman and child. But the supply train, of course, was never to bless little Santa Rita. Mangas Coloradas had seen to that.

So the miners and their families left Santa Rita – left their homes, the mine shafts, the tiny smelter, their livestock – left it a ghost town. Theirs was a pathetic procession as it moved southward, each under his or her load. The cargo was mostly carried on horses, mules and burros. A few strong men pushed laden wheelbarrows.

They decided, as they went on, that if the train was not met they would go the entire 400 miles to Chihuahua. They were aware that warriors followed – hidden from view but hungry to avenge the slaughter at Santa Rita, a blood payment for the life of Juan Jose, for the trusting women, for the innocents in cradleboards. In bright sunlight there came a time for the massacre. Out of the 400 who started, only six lived to reach Chihuahua.

Santa Rita was still deserted some 12 years later when an overflow of "forty-niners" from California prospected for gold in the surrounding area, and the bonanza camps of Pinos Altos, Georgetown, Silver City and Mogollon were staked out for residence while working the lodes. A company of cavalry then occupied the old Santa Rita torreon, or fortress, built by the Elgueas a half-century before, while they protected the gold miners against Apache attacks. No interest was shown in copper. gold and silver shining bright were the twin elements that gave lift to the muckstick and sound to the blast.

By 1872, Cochise of the Chiricahua Apaches had succeeded Coloradas as supreme chief. He made a treaty with the government that put the tribesmen on reservations, and it seemed that at last peace had come to the hills and flats and arroyos that were the Mimbres.

So a Denver man, Martin B. Hayes, took over the Santa Rita mines. Obtaining a patent was no easy task, as the Elguea heirs were scattered over Mexico and Spain. He obtained ownership, however, the 45 claims, each with a name recorded by its former operator. One was called El Chino, translated form Spanish as "The Chinaman."

But peace, such as it was, did not last – could not last. Santa Rita enjoyed only a few years of revival. Geronimo escaped form the reservation hating all Mexicans and Americans, among the latter, the Spanish-Americans of New Mexico. He fled southward to Mexico where, with a band of feisty warriors, he set up a stronghold in the Sierra Madre. From there he continued a war of vengeance.

In 1879, Victorio, another Apache leader, with a large following of Mescalero braves, crossed the Black Range into southwestern New Mexico. Other bands attacked other locales. All this didn’t help harvest the copper at Santa Rita. Then Victorio was killed in Chihuahua in October 1880. in 1886, Geronimo surrendered to the military in Skeleton Canyon in the Peloncillo Mountains, thus ending the Apache wars that began with Johnson’s howitzer party at Santa Rita in 1837.

J. Parker Whitney purchased the copper mine from Hayes sometime before 1886 and operated it until the turn of the century. Then a group of New York investors established the Santa Rita Mining Company and leased the claims to miners. The miners, in turn, brought up the ores. The job of milling was done by the company.

Santa Rita was then 100 years old. The high-grade ores were ready to play out. Bodies of sulfide rock were showing, but little did the people concerned realize that this massive geological change was a herald of the real bonanza – the priceless treasure chest of Chino mines.

In 1904, the ores assayed less than 10 percent copper content, no longer considered worth processing. But that same year there arrived in Santa Rita a young and ambitious engineer, John N. Sully, sent by the Hermosa Copper Company, which hoped to purchase Santa Rita. Converting low-grade ore to profit was Sully’s stock in trade.

He explored the old diggings, then in 1905 came up with the news that there were six million tons of undeveloped ore averaging 2.73 percent copper, the huge amount making mining worthwhile for a company that could afford the initial capital outlay to finance it. Hermosa gave up its plan to purchase, which set Sully free to do as he pleased with the survey. In 1909, after four years of trying with no results, he attracted backers and formed the Chino Copper Company. In 1910, the steam shovels began biting into the earth, and the great open pit of today began to take form. A mill was erected at nearby Hurley in 1911, a smelter in 1939, a fire refinery in 1942. After years of company mergers and consolidations, Chino became part of the worldwide Kennecott Corporation.

And as the width of the Glory Hole expanded, so the town of Santa Rita moved back to make room for the harvest – for Copper the King – and finally at the monarch’s command be gone, dissolve, live only on the pages of history. At Santa Rita all has become change, from the big to the mammoth, from the earliest event in the chronicles of the American West to the spectacular of present-day industry.

What sound and clatter, what dust, upheaval, joy, pain and death have sprung from a small copper arrowpoint held in the palm of the Spaniard Carrasco, the gift of an Apache warrior in exchange for a show of compassion.

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Mogollon

You can tell it’s spring. Flowers are blooming. Birds are singing. Days are getting longer. And the wind is blowing.

Armand Tremolo stepped out for a breath of air the other day. However, the air in the vicinity happened to be moving about seventy miles per hour.

Unbeknownst to Armand, at the very moment he was perusing the world famous Mogollon skyline, the fragrant spring breeze was removing the cap from his stovepipe.

The stovepipe cap missed Armand’s head by approximately two inches and landed, with a resounding crash, in a pile of scrap metal. Armand bolted, in a blind panic, in the direction of the most immediate assistance he could think of.

"The Libyans have invaded!" he shouted, as he burst through the door of the Bloated Goat, which, being the only public business establishment currently open in Mogollon, contained a good twenty percent of the resident population.

None of the three patrons were inclined to be impressed by Armand’s warning, although it was followed, right on cue, by the boom of an explosion. "See!" shrieked Armand, as he dove under a table.

"Just sounds like blasting at the mine," Joe Malloney replied. "Come on out, Armand. Let me buy you a shot. Calm you down."

Armand crept cautiously out from his hiding place. Just then, there came the report of gunfire from up the canyon. Armand headed immediately for the old mine which serves the Bloated Goat as a cellar.

Joe was now curious. The wind having died down to a mere forty-five miles per hour, he strolled up the road to see what was going on.

The hostilities turned out to be Stella Nevil running the cows out of her garden again. She was cussing a mile a minute while reloading her black powder elephant gun.

Joe shook his head sympathetically and wished Stella good luck. Then he ambled back down to the Bloated Goat. On his way, he noticed the cap was missing from Armand’s stovepipe.

"Hey Armand, wind got your stovepipe cap," he hollered at the cellar door.

"You’re sure it wasn’t the Libyans?" came a muffled reply.

"What would they want with your stovepipe cap?"

Armand did come out. However, he spent the rest of the day checking his stovepipe for terrorist bombs.

Read more samples from the Mogollon News

Winter
The Silver Creek Temperance Society
Blasting
The Balloon
Ice
Halley’s Comet
The Libyan Invasion
A Case of Religion
Politics

Contact SouthernNewMexico.com if you are interesting in publishing Uncle River’s "Mogollon News."

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Mogollon

This past weekend, Armand Tremolo received a visit by his niece, Martina Solari, and her nine children, of Tucson.

Armand, at fifty-seven, has never married. There are no children currently living in Mogollon. Armand is not used to kids. Things generally went all right, however, till Martina realized she had forgotten to bring an extra box of pampers.

She took the baby with her. The oldest girl, Natalie, rode along too, to get in a talk with her mother. This left Armand with seven children ranging in age from just two to thirteen.

Everything might have been all right if Martina had not made a wrong turn at the highway and ended up driving to Reserve. As it was, she was gone most of the day.

Armand described the experience as being, "Like I was back in Korea. – You know, the war nobody mentions except on MASH. Felt like I was surrounded, outnumbered. And they all move so fast!

"First thing Martina was out of sight, Dennise (she’s six) says she’s hungry. I say, ‘How about a cheese sandwich?’ She’s pleased as can be. I think I’m doing fine. Next thing I know, they all want a cheese sandwich, and there isn’t enough cheese to go around. You could of heard the ruckus clear to Mexico.

"By the time I had half of them talked into peanut butter, little Daniel, the two year old, and Steve, who is four, had found the grease gun, a couple of pipe wrenches, a can of nuts and bolts, and a five gallon bucket of flour. I’m not sure if they were making a cake or a rocket ship, but whatever it was supposed to be, it was a big one.

"That’s when Billy (he’s ten) discovered the balloon. I felt like a prisoner that got reprieved from death – just in time for a riot. It at least caught everyone’s attention. Except Cynthia. But she was no problem anyhow, though she wasn’t any help either. She just found an old Reader’s Digest book of condensed novels and read. A very serious twelve year old that Cynthia.

"I blew up the balloon. Had, ‘I like Ike,’ printed on it. I batted it to Billy, and he batted it on to Joanne (she’s nine). I held my breath waiting to see if she’d squawk or play. She laughed and batted the balloon on to Steve. By then they were all hooked.

"All but Cynthia. She just wanted to know who Ike was, so I told her. Then she went back to her book."

Martina and the kids left Monday morning. Armand has been over at the Bloated Goat ever since.

Read more samples from the Mogollon News

Winter
The Silver Creek Temperance Society
Blasting
The Balloon
Ice
Halley’s Comet
The Libyan Invasion
A Case of Religion
Politics

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Mogollon

The Bloated Goat Saloon closed for the season Thursday before Memorial Day.

Some folks might think it contrary to shut down a public establishment just when tourist traffic is picking up. Some folks don’t know Jim and Melissa Farnsworth, the proprietors.

According to Jim and Melissa, the Bloated Goat just is not big enough to accommodate the number of people who would want to use it in summer. There is not enough space for parking either. This may be true, but everyone in Mogollon believes the real reason they shut down is politics.

Jim and Melissa are, once again, running against each other for mayor of Mogollon. With primaries over, they figure it is time to hit the campaign trail.

The campaign trail is fairly short actually – ever since the time, a few years back, when they drove into the Pacific – Pacific Mine that is, and had to hire a team of mules to haul them back out again. However, Silver Creek Canyon has rarely been graced with such oratory (or slander, depending on your point of view) as our worthy mayoral candidates on the stump.

Melissa is running as a Federalist. Jim is running as a Whig. They campaign together. Precisely what their program is for the future glory of Mogollon remains somewhat murky. Their opinion of one another, however, is brilliantly displayed for all the world to hear – or at least local residents of voting age.

The entire population of Mogollon has long since made it clear that any mayor who tries to raise a budget of over thirty-four cents from local taxes of any kind will be tarred and feathered and dropped down the Glory Hole. However, Jim and Melissa campaigning is a good enough show that quite a few people will feed them dinner when they come around. – And folks remember how generously they hand out rounds on the house in winter.

Elvira Sonderfeld even puts on an open house. People weren’t sure she would be up for it this year as she is now eighty-five. "When I was forty-five, I lied about my age. Now I’m proud of it," she says.

It is not altogether clear whether Elvira’s open house is really for Jim and Melissa’s benefit or just so the bears can show off their new cubs. She hasn’t set the date yet, but she has already started cooking. It should be a good one.

Jim and Melissa are well into their campaign. The invective and breaking crockery are frequently audible clear to South Fork.

Read more samples from the Mogollon News

Winter
The Silver Creek Temperance Society
Blasting
The Balloon
Ice
Halley’s Comet
The Libyan Invasion
A Case of Religion
Politics

Contact SouthernNewMexico.com if you are interesting in publishing Uncle River’s "Mogollon News."

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Mogollon

It is winter in Mogollon, and in winter it becomes readily apparent why Mogollon is a ghost town.

At last measurement, the snow on the shady side of the street was eighteen feet deep. This measurement was taken by having Joe Malloney, who is six feet tall, stand with a surveyor’s stick on his head. Unfortunately, Joe froze stiff, and while the local rescue crew was digging him out, the surveyor’s stick got lost in the snow. It is probably deeper by now, though no further measurements have been attempted.

You will be relieved to learn, however, that Joe froze so quickly he didn’t have time to suffocate. So he was carried down to the Bloated Goat where, with liberal ministrations by Drs. Jim Beam and José Cuervo, he is recovering rapidly.

The Bloated Goat Saloon opened for business as usual at 10:00 AM on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Whiskey is six dollars a shot. Tourists are recommended to bring their own firearms as rentals go fast, especially when the weather keeps everyone in. A round on the house will be provided to anyone who brings up some new bar stools or tables as there is a severe shortage of furniture since the big blizzard the week before Christmas.

On the sunny slope, in the meantime, daffodils and grape hyacinths are blooming again, and the first crop of salad greens is almost ready for harvest. Several attempts have been made to erect a greenhouse so tropical fruit could be grown, but falling boulders have always shattered the glass thus far.

The road is usually plowed after storms in time for the mail to come in. However, anyone wishing to visit Mogollon should be warned that it gets muddy on warm days. Four wheel drive is not advised as it only digs a hole faster, and the helicopter costs to pull out the extra weight are that much greater as well. In fact, one Jeep Cherokee disappeared altogether. The passengers only just managed to escape by smashing the windshield. They all have required a very expensive course of therapy (which can usually be provided in the back room of the Bloated Goat).

Anyone wishing to visit Mogollon should be advised that the best time to arrive is between dawn and sunrise. Since the road is only passable when frozen and impossible to negotiate after dark, anyone still in Mogollon after 8 AM should plan to be here at least twenty-four hours.

Accommodations are generally available without reservations if you don’t mind sharing your quarters with the bears. However, there is no food service in town this winter. So you should bring plenty in case the weather closes in. Four thousand calories per person per day is usually adequate even when it is very cold. But bring extra as the bears will probably want a share.

Read more samples from the Mogollon News

Winter
The Silver Creek Temperance Society
Blasting
The Balloon
Ice
Halley’s Comet
The Libyan Invasion
A Case of Religion
Politics

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Mogollon

Twenty-six people attended the annual meeting of the Silver Creek Temperance Society. That is more than the resident population, let alone nondrinkers. And two of those present did appear to have been exhumed for the occasion.

Elvira Sonderfeld hosted the event, as usual. Her cooking undoubtedly drew the crowd. Everyone was on their best behavior too because liquor makes the bears ornery.

Perhaps some history is in order here: Elvira inherited the Mogollon Rooming House in the great flu epidemic of 1918. She was no relation to the previous owners. But when the epidemic struck, the Rooming House got turned into a hospital. Elvira, being an idealistic girl at the time, nursed the sick and dying.

By spring, Mogollon’s population was decimated. Only about seventy people died. However, that was enough to scare off several hundred more, including the previous owners of the Mogollon Rooming House. Elvira just stayed on.

Citizens who recovered from the flu remembered Elvira’s kindness and saw that her needs were met. When no one had asserted a claim to the Mogollon Rooming House by about 1930, someone got a deed drawn up in Elvira’s name.

By then, it actually was a rooming house again. Elvira’s cooking was already famous. When the population of Mogollon dropped off to nearly zero in the fifties though, there was no one to stay there with her – except the bears.

The Mogollon Rooming House is opposite the mouth of Dog Canyon, so named because people used to dump dead dogs there. Perhaps that is what attracted the bears.

When all the people left, Elvira got terribly lonely. Eventually, she just invited the bears in for company. So far as anyone can recall, they have been there since 1958.

The Silver Creek Temperance Society was well into dessert when someone noted that old Mortimer Walker was not present. It was soon ascertained that nobody had seen him in some time. So a delegation was formed to see that he was all right. There were twelve volunteers, including five bears. Mort lives on the shady side of the street, so he had to dig a tunnel through the snow to the mailbox sometime in November. However, we have been having something of a mild spell lately. Sure enough, with all the warm weather, the tunnel had collapsed. Everyone became quite concerned when they saw this and began to dig.

It was hard work for a bit, but before long the bears caught on to what was happening and pitched in. After that, everyone else just stood back. In no time flat, the bears were through that heavy, wet snow and in Mort’s door. There was one loud crash. And those five bears came hightailing it out of there and back up the street to Elvira’s faster than you would believe anything that big could move.

We heard old Mort holler, "Can’t a man hibernate in peace!" And the door slammed. So we knew he was all right. But no one could figure out what happened to the bears till somebody mentioned it the next day to one of the people who deliver the mail.

The response was a chuckle. "So that explains that last order. I wondered what he wanted with two pounds of cayenne."

Read more samples from the Mogollon News

Winter
The Silver Creek Temperance Society
Blasting
The Balloon
Ice
Halley’s Comet
The Libyan Invasion
A Case of Religion
Politics

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The road to Mogollon

The road to Mogollon is justly notorious. It is not a bad road…not especially rough. And it has been worked on recently. It is not even all that steep. (At least some of it isn’t.) However, with the exception of one flat stretch over the top of Whitewater Mesa a third of the way up, all of it is a grade. And all of it is narrow and twisty, with solid rock straight up on one side for hundreds of feet and straight down an equal or greater distance on the other side. The Mogollon Road rises about twenty-five hundred feet and then drops back about twelve hundred – all in the space of nine miles. It makes for wonderful views.

The solid rock is why the road does not fall off the side of the mountain, though piles of it do occasionally fall onto the road. There are numerous signs to warn the uninitiated of the hazards of the Mogollon Road.

The road is only one of the many reasons why nobody lives in Mogollon by accident. There are lots of reasons not to live in Mogollon. It does not get much sun in winter. It is far from most places to make a living. It is far from stores and hospitals. Cabin fever traditionally sets in sometime around the second week of September, to lift only when the tourists show up again – well into the following summer.

A couple of years ago, when there were about twenty people working at the mine, someone commented that the gold and silver mine here in Mogollon was the biggest private employer in Catron County. That says something about a county larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island put together, where the largest private employer is located in a ghost town. There are buildings in Connecticut with more people in them than there are in Catron County.

People out here tend to be ornery and individualistic. However, a hundred years ago, the priorities of remoteness and gold led to far more serious dissension than they do now. Back then, the Apaches were looking for someplace to keep out of the way. What is now the Gila Wilderness was one of the last places available. The gold and silver at Mogollon were bringing in lots of people. Modern disagreements are mild by comparison.

Living someplace like Mogollon is a popular fantasy. Not many people actually try it, and most of those who do rapidly discover that they really do not want to live a place so demanding and remote. Many of the few who stay, however, turn out to be unique and often exceptionally sensitive individuals who, with patience and effort, create a constructive niche for themselves in a setting where every individual counts. These are the special people who bless isolated communities in far greater proportion than is possible places where everyone is just a cypher. They are the real rugged individuals America was once famous for.

Mogollon

In the fall of 1985, a new column appeared in The Silver City Enterprise, then New Mexico’s oldest continuously-published weekly newspaper, appearing regularly since 1882. The introductory material you have just read is taken from the columns of Oct. 10 and 17, 1985. The following summer, "The Mogollon News, from the heart of Catron County," began weekly broadcast on Public Radio Station KRWG in Las Cruces. The Silver City Enterprise shut down in Nov., 1987. But the "Mogollon News" continued, in Silver City’s El Reportero: New Mexico’s only bilingual newspaper, the Catron County Firestarter (Glenwood, N. M.), and the Big Water Times (Big Water, Utah). In the 90s, it became a regular feature in the award-winning British experimental Speculative Fiction magazine, BBR, and on SouthernNewMexico.com.

The "Mogollon News" enters with the Mogollon Road and exits with the Catron County Land Use Plan, both thoroughly real. History and geography are equally real. The stories and their characters are fiction. But the atmosphere is authentic. The time covered is 1985-95, a decade when Catron County ¾ New Mexico’s largest and least populous, in which Mogollon sets, became a national leader of the growing rural ferment over local say in land use issues. Perhaps these tales may contribute a bit of insight. Of course people, including the inhabitants of the "Mogollon News", mostly live their personal lives, with their many personal joys, sorrows, struggles and quirks, at any time. None of the people in these stories (except Uncle River) really have lived in Mogollon. But they could. If you would like to experience more of the view from one of America’s most spectacular and remote ghost towns, read on.

Winter
The Silver Creek Temperance Society
Blasting
The Balloon
Ice
Halley’s Comet
The Libyan Invasion
A Case of Religion
Politics

Contact SouthernNewMexico.com if you are interesting in publishing Uncle River’s "Mogollon News."

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The Road to Mogollon

This winter, Joe Malloney decided to go into the ice business. He was well situated with the creek handy and some tanks on the shady side of the street. There was even an abandoned mine behind his house he could use for storage.

Ice looked like just the sort of business he could do pretty well in: Low capital investment. – Just a saw to cut it into hundred pound chunks. He welded up a set of ice tongs out of scrap.

Next summer he figured he’d put up a sign and sell his ice to the tourists going camping in the forest or fishing at Snow Lake.

It has been a mild winter, but that is still plenty cold enough up here in Mogollon to make ice. So Joe’s been going great guns since November (except when he got froze measuring the snow and had to lay off for a few days).

Elvira Sonderfeld doesn’t get out a lot any more, but with spring on the air, she went for a walk one afternoon and happened on Joe. Though it was warm and bright in the sun,

Joe’s tanks in the shade were already cooling off. He was pouring in the water for another batch. Elvira, who remembers the old days, struck up a conversation with him about the ice business.

"Folks didn’t have electric refrigerators back then. So this fellow used to drive into town with a wagon hollering, ‘Ice! Ice for sale.’"

Joe smiled nostalgically.

Elvira looked around. "What are you doing for sawdust?"

"Sawdust?"

"Yes. Ol’ ‘Ice’ packed his in sawdust. Helped it stay frozen. And kept the blocks from all sticking together."

Joe turned slightly green.

So, folks, next summer when Joe’s sign goes up, have a little sympathy if the blocks come in funny sizes. There’ll be a lot of crushed ice for sale too. It still won’t have taken much capital. But it is going to be some mighty labor-intensive ice for the price.

Read more samples from the Mogollon News

Winter
The Silver Creek Temperance Society
Blasting
The Balloon
Ice
Halley’s Comet
The Libyan Invasion
A Case of Religion
Politics

Contact SouthernNewMexico.com if you are interesting in publishing Uncle River’s "Mogollon News."

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