Hey hey USA - 16th October - Lake Valley ghost town part 2
By the time we left the church the weather really looked to be on a downturn. Black clouds were rolling in and the temperature was falling. We continued down Railway Avenue to the water towers that were used when the railway came to Lake Valley.
A branch line of the Santa Fe Railroad was built to Lake Valley to serve the mines and later to provide goods for the town's merchants. The railway arrived in 1884, but by 1934 its use was so limited that the line was dismantled. We looked beyond the fence to where the line once ran.
We could also see where the railroad ran up to mines
There was a wooden storage type building by the railroad said to be the coal sorter.
The other form of transport was the stage coach that ran between Lake valley and Hillsboro and Kingston, both mining towns to the north, and Nutt to the south. This was a much riskier form of transport, subject to attacks by bandits and the rough unmade roads it had to negotiate. At one time the stagecoach was operated and run by a very enterprising lady Sadie Orchard and her husband James. James was a bit of a layabout, Sadie described him as a 'sad sack', and eventually divorced him. Sadie was born in Ohio but moved down to Kingston in 1886, where she opened a brothel on Virtue Street! Apparently she asked her customers for extra money to build the church in Kingston. She told great stories about herself, wore fine clothes and claimed she was born in London, although she did not speak like a lady! She moved to Hillsboro in the late 1880's as Kingston was declining and ran the stagecoach line between 1888 and 1902. After she had finished with the stagecoach she ran the Hillsboro Hotel. At the time of WW1 Hillsboro was badly hit by Spanish flu and Sadie helped to nurse and care for the sick and dying. She remained in Hillsboro until her death in 1943.
We got some good views of the surrounding countryside and the manganese mine from the railroad site.
We even tripped over a rattlesnake, albeit a dead one. This was the only one we saw in New Mexico although there were signs everywhere telling you to keep clear of them.
We left Railroad Avenue and turned down Keil Avenue, back towards the schoolhouse where we had parked.
We passed the Keil House on the corner and then came to a wooden building with its beams sagging and warped.This was once the home and office of the town physician Dr W. G. Beale. He was remembered as having a 'fast stepping horse'. Useful in the days before ambulances. After he had left the Martinez family moved in from 1930 until 1960 before moving up the road to Railway Avenue. This was the only house where we could get a peek at the interior, if only through the wired up windows and doors.
We passed lots of detritus before getting to the schoolhouse but once we were inside there was a mass of interesting things to look at and articles to read. I even found an interesting shield bug in the toilet.
We unfortunately did not visit the cemetery which was on the other side of the paved road. Next to the cemetery there had been a separate community of Mexicans who came to work in the mines. Little remains of their dwellings apart from some foundations.
Some references which I found useful. There is more information in these articles about Chihene Apache whose lands had extended through south western New Mexico. They were nomads and although expelled from the area 3 times by US forces they kept coming back. Eventually after Geronimo had surrendered in 1886 they were interned for 27 years, being shipped first to Florida and then to Oklahoma. There is also a lot of information about the mine owners and some of the tricks they got up to to keep investors sweet.
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