Trail Dust: History comes alive in state's many ghost towns

Thanks for the interesting article on Ghost Towns. One oversight in many of the publications on NM ghost towns is the still inhabited community of Oro Grande on US-54 half way between El Paso and Alamogordo. There were at least two other mining communities in that locale when mining was most active in the hills known as the Jarilla Mountains.

Good column, Marc. Subtitled "The European Towns That Didn't Work Out." So many layers to this story. The popular perception of ghost (abandoned) towns is that they were established during territorial times, usually for mining purposes. In fact they extend back much farther; the Mexican Real de Dolores and the Spanish Real de los Cerrillos being two mining examples not far from your estancia. Most of these European settlements have, to varying degrees, problems with relict pollutants, which leads into the fascinating topic of Spanish mining regulations and practices, which were later largely adopted by the Americans. Perhaps material for another Trail Dust?

When you consider that New Mexico has been populated for well over 10,000 years -- by the forgotton New Mexicans?-- we may have today in our state more "ghost towns" than living towns.

i have read and enjoyed mr. simmon's articles for many years-they are wonderful little 'capsules' of new mexico and long-ago [in our terms] human life of this adopted state. i look forward to each story on saturday.

Las Ruedas, New Mexico on the Pecos River just below Rowe off of I-25.

Near to Elizabethtown was La Belle.
I have a photograph by O.T. Davis of the assembled inhabitants taken on the day the La Belle newspaper was first printed in the 1890s. Standing in the door of the newspaper 'building' is my grandfather, Frank Staplin, the editor, with his dog.
Later, he published newspapers in Taos and Santa Fe, the last the New Mexico State Record.
Another Davis photograph, taken at the same time, shows men in front of their cabin, cooking a meal. Leaning against the cabin is a man and his cello. The name of this gold camp musician is lost.