Last trip into Silver City, NM, Sunday, August 18,2019

Today, I made my last trip into town before heading back to Phoenix.  I had meant to get some of these photos every time I passed the signs before.  Leaving Gila and heading into Silver City, you cross the Continental Divide and enter the Mimbres Basin Watershed.  Going back to Gila, you cross the Continental Divide and enter the Gila River Watershed.

After turning off US Highway 180, a bit before reaching the center of the Town of Gila, you pass a local private airport - the orange item is the wind sock, and obviously, no wind was blowing when I took this phote.

There are five churches in the center of town, along with the library, post office, senior center, youth center and playground, medical clinic and the former village market (it went bust after the recession of 2008).  What is now the Catholic Church was the church built as part of the Lyons and Campbell Ranch for the 100 or so Mexican families that lived on and worked at the ranch (see my blog post from August 17, 2019).   All the churches and the buildings listed above are all within a couple of hundred yards of each other.

The Catholic Church is just about the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and is not far from the Lyons and Campbell Ranch we visited the day before (the L.C. Ranch is to the left on LC Lane).

Just past the church is Hooker Lane, which we follow for three miles before turning on to Double E Ranch Road for the final 3/4 mile to our rental.

As I drive on Double E Ranch Road down the hill towards our rental, the green ribbon in this photo is the riparian area along Bear Creek, the source of water for the Double E Ranch.

So ends our time in Gila, NM, but for packing up, cleaning up and driving back to Phoenix.

Lyons and Campbell Ranch, Gila, NM, Saturday, August 17, 2019

On Saturday, we visited Lyons and Campbell Ranch.  At one time, the ranch covered a million acres, had offices in New York and Los Angeles, and raised 30,000 head of cattle per year.  In Gila, they eventually brought all of their operations into one locale (except for the investment office in New York and the cattle selling in Los Angeles).  They effectively built their own town, including the Catholic Church in town (no longer a part of the ranch), a saloon, Post Office, Jail, ice factory (manufacturing ice, as there is no natural ice here as in northern climes), bunk house for the rotating crews of cowboys, laundry, wine cellar and more.

What remains of the ranch is some of the buildings on five acres and is now a non-profit corporation.  They host weddings and events, as well as have two apartments they rent through Air BNB, Booking.com and Travelocity - they have an in ground pool for renters use.  They give tours on Saturdays at noon.  A second group of people were scheduled to join us, but cancelled just as we started.  So we had a private tour with Alex, whose family has owned the property since 1961.  We started in one large building that housed the post office (and now houses a pool table), the saloon (bar made by Alex, who among other things has been a cabinet maker) and the jail.

We started in the post office.  They had found the mail boxes at a dump - the wall which held them had been removed making the room large enough to now house the pool table.

Since it costs too much to get a liquor license, any events must be BYOB - New Mexico laws prohibits for profit companies from hosting BYOB events, but non-profit organizations can.  New Mexico laws also only allow gambling at businesses owned by Native American tribes, so although there are slot machines and gambling tables at the ranch, they cannot be used. 

In one section of the saloon, there was a chuck wagon - this cabinet could be used on the back of any wagon, and when the door was folded down and out like this, would be the work space for the cook.

The jail is in rough shape, still with bars on some of the windows and the doors were on the floor.

Here is the exterior of the building - they are working on building a new porch to replace the rotted out wood porch.  The post office is on the left, saloon is in the center and the jail was on the right.

We then went into the original hacienda where some of the original vigas could be seen - vigas are the logs that have had the bark stripped and have one flat side on which the floor boards of the upper floor (or the roof if there was no second floor) were laid.  They think the building had been built by the Mexican army when the Santa Rita mine was first in operation in the early 1800s, but then was expanded by Lyons and Campbell.  It now has at least a dozen rooms, all decorated with things the family has collected over the years.  The ranch sat empty from the 1920s until the current owners bought it in 1961.  The only item found from the original ranch is the stuffed fish on the wall in the third saloon photo above - everything else, the family has found and collected from elsewhere.

There was a library.

Many religious displays were present.

This room used to be the Lyons bedroom, but this bed was brought here from Bali by Alex's brother.

The living room has paintings from Europe, including Charles I in the middle and the Duke of Wellington (he defeated Napolean at Waterloo) on the right.

In the living room, there was a square piano.

Here is Alex in the dining room; the kitchen is behind the curtains.

In the building that housed the ice factory, they have built a stage with auditorium for plays, operas (Alex's father was a well known opera singer who performed in Europe and across the USA), weddings and parties.  Besides seating on the floor, they was also a balcony in the back.

They had a couple more saloons/bars in the ice factory, as well as dining rooms and a large kitchen for events.

The tour also included more modern amenities like the pool, covered BBQ/picnic area and the two apartments they rent out.  We did not get to see every building, but the tour kept us busy for two and half hours.  Alex is a great story teller.  His family had just returned from a three week vacation in Europe visiting Scotland, Sweden and Denmark.  It was a fun way to spend a Saturday.

Mimbres Culture Heritage Site, Mimbres, NM, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019

While at Fort Bayard, I picked up a brochure for Mimbres Culture Heritage Site.  While the history of the archaeological work goes back for more than a century (the Mimbres village for a couple thousand years), it is a small and relatively new non-profit with two buildings and a small barn plus an outbuilding.  It is completely run by volunteers.

Before going inside, we noticed that there were a lot of hummingbirds and there was a large sign advertising their recently held hummingbird festival.  There were smaller signs with info about training and banding the birds, plus there were many hummingbird feeders and hummingbirds.

We checked into the museum, paid the entrance fee and decided to explore the short trail before going inside the buildings.  Behind the main building, there was a cute mobile medicine shop.

At the start of the trail, there is info about the archaeological site and the history of the work done there.  We had seen references to this when we visited the Western New Mexico University Museum several weeks ago:   http://travelswithsherpatom.blogspot.com/2019/07/western-new-mexico-university-museum.html The formal archaeological work was done in 1929-1931 and in the 1970s. 

We had been told about the resident cat and were greeted as we started the trail. He is so friendly, there are signs in the parking lot asking you to make sure the cat is not in your car before you leave.

The self guided tour shows where different parts of the village remains are but they are completely overgrown today.

Along the trail, there are informational signs about the native plants.

There are also signs about the different structures found here when they we doing the formal digging.

Instead of building full sized replicas of the buildings, they have small replicas on tables to show what the original buildings would have looked like.

There was a side trail that went down to the river (it was not open when we were there) where there was info about local fauna (including our favorite javelinas) under a ramada.

After completing the short quarter mile trail, we stopped in the small barn to see this well kept carriage.

We then went into the Doctor Wood house.  They are still working on rehabbing this building, but they have the room used as his medical office open and filled with relics from the 1800s and early 1900s.

 There were a couple of the medical bags used when making house calls.

In the main building, there was one room dedicated to the history of the Mimbres people including much about the characteristic black on white pottery.

There was a nice table size replica showing how the entire village would have looked.

In another room they had displays of the Native American, Mexican, ranchers and miners that were in Mimbres at one time.

Among other things, the gift shop had nice flags from the hummingbird festival.

We then drove back into Silver City for lunch at the Tapas Tree Grill where we had some tasty glompers and salads (click on the link to see the menu and learn about glompers).  There was no tapestry but they had plentyof tapas in Tapas Tree Grill.

 And after lunch, we noticed the mint green Mint Chip Creamery ice cream truck.