Part 4

In 1886, Nellie Robbins returned to her family after spending three years at school in Sedalia, Missouri, and accepted a teaching position. Her parents were living at the Deep Down, a mine east of Cross Mountain. Since she rode horseback to and from school her first earnings were spent for a riding habit which was made for her by Mrs. Stanley (Henry Stanley’s mother) of green velvet. Fringed gauntlets and a chic bowler hat completed her outfit. She changed into school attire at the home of Judge and Mrs. English (parents of Mrs. John Moses) where she also left her horse. Mr. Homogon Cuebas is the only one of her pupils, so far as is known, still living in the area.

Mr. Stephens felt responsible for “his people” as he called the miners who worked for him and their families. When weather was bad he would have Pancho, the handy man, hitch up the mules, gather the children, and get them to school. One winter when there was an unusually heavy snow he had runners made for the delivery wagon and the youngsters had sleigh rides to and from school. Ordinarily most children walked, some a distance of three or four miles. A few had ponies or burros, on which the younger ones would ride. Families were large. One father came into the store one day and said, “The kids are all in school now, but the weather is getting cold. They can’t go with bare feet. Sell me one dozen pair of shoes.” What sizes? “Oh, just assorted.” Brogans came in barrels in those days, so a dozen pair of assorted sizes were picked out and the Schafer children came to school, proud if awkward, in the new shoes.

By 1888 a larger school was needed, and again Mr. Stephens through the Pinos Altos Mining Company, known locally as “Bell and Stephens”, donated land and built on the present site. The people of the town were very proud of the new building and in the good American tradition would not be content until the flag was flying over it. Men found a beautiful pine well over one hundred feet tall in the forest, cut, trimmed and shaped it only to find that they could not get the pole into town by oxen without cutting it. They did so and by splicing it together again, painting it, and surmounting it with a golden ball (made by W. E. Watson), erected the pole ninety-two feet high. The first flag raising and dedication on Feb. 22, 1889, was an event attended by the townspeople. Lightning over the years shortened the pole and the cost of keeping it in repair caused it to be taken down after twenty years of service. The principal of the new school was a Mr. Tilman, followed by a Mr. Miller, W. H. Decker, Miss Lela Manville, Mrs. Grace Bisby, and others.

Under P.W.A. the old building was razed and a two-room adobe erected. It was inadequate and another building was put up. There were never more than six teachers employed during a term. The extra classes were held in the Community Church and in the old office building since destroyed by fire. Outstanding teachers, as judged by pupils, co-workers, and the community were Mr. Decker, Miss Manville, and Mrs. Bisby, who contributed not only educationally to the locale but to the county, civically and socially. The last teachers were Mr. W. Westwood and Mrs. Elton Robinson.

In the early days a board fence surrounded the playground and the favorite game at recess was “Follow the Leader” along the top of the fence. The boys also played “Kick the Can” or getting out of bounds, “Hide and Seek” in the nearby lumber yard and wood lot. The girls amused themselves with the old singing games. Both groups joined in marble games, jumping rope, and walking stilts when they were in season. Miss Manville introduced basketball and at that time games were played on the crest of the Continental Divide. Miss Eva McGregor drove up from Silver City once a week to instruct and Miss Clara Upchurch (later Mrs. Will Trevarrow), who was Miss Manville’s assistant, coached on other days and played with the girls.

As in all small communities the school house has been the center of activities. Until the Methodist Church was built in 1898 all Protestant denominations held services there. Magic lantern shows and Medicine Men and tight-rope walkers entertained there. At one Christmas party Santa’s sleeve caught fire from the candles on the tree. He was wrapped in coats and carried out while the small fry whimpered with fear and terror but there was no panic. Frank Brito appeared at the homes of friends on Christmas Day none the worse for his experience. During the depression years one building was used as a library and recreation center and was patronized by both children and adults.

Some years ago an educator wrote “The rural school has been a little house, on a little hill, with little equipment, where a little teacher, at a little salary, for a little while, teaches little children little things”. Some progressive school people decided that was all too true and with the American concept that bigger meant better, thought consolidation was a step in the right direction. Pinos Altos children now “ride the bus” into Silver City. That undoubtedly has its advantages but to oldsters there is a void and they look with regret at the abandoned buildings and sigh nostalgically for the sound of the bell and the sight of “Old Glory”.

Churches

The first Catholic church was built in 1868. The adobe ruins between the homes of Miss Ashton and Mrs. Strachbein may have been it. There is a record of Fr. Francis Bernal having visited the camp in 1869 where he baptized several children, one of them being a sister of Francisco Grijalva. At the time Mesilla was the center of the diocese and priests from there visited all ranches and small communities at least once a year, baptizing all children born during the year, hearing the marriage vows of those couples who had decided to live together since his last trip, and saying masses for those who had died. These hardy and devoted men were welcome everywhere, for not only did they represent the church, but they brought news of the outside world and gossip regarding persons and places in southwestern New Mexico. They had many adventures, some tragic, some comic and not always in keeping with the precepts of the church.

Many years ago an Irish-Catholic, whose given name was Martin Luther, lived here. He said his family had lived on a small ranch in a remote section of the country where the priest came but once a year, and that always there was a new baby when he arrived. One blustery and cold March day the good father appeared and after his mule had been cared for, he turned to the rancher and said, “Well, Mike, I suppose there’s a young one”. “Yes,” said the father, “A boy and I want him christened Martin Luther”. The good padre threw up his hands in holy terror. After a good meal of mutton, frijoles, tortillas and coffee the priest had not been softened and the father insisted that “Martin Luther” be the name. The priest had to leave early next morning so the baby had to be baptized that day but hours went by in talk of various matters, frequent nips from the little brown jug and back to the argument. The warm fire, good meal, and apple jack had made the two men drowsy. The priest asked that the babe be brought out for the rites and when he said, “With what name do I christen this child?” the father replied, “Martin Luther”. The old priest bowed his head, dipped his trembling fingers into the holy water, tenderly placed them on the baby’s head, and blessed “Martin Luther”.

The Church of the Holy Cross was built on land donated by Mr. Frank C. Bell (father of James H. Bell) on what during the ’60’s had been the dueling ground. It was blessed on July 17, 1888, in honor of St. Alexis, the Confessor, and has always been served as a mission of St. Vincent De Paul Church in Silver City. Ever since the cross was erected on the mountain by Sr. Santiago Brito in gratitude to God for deliverance from the Indians and in honor of Saint Helena, May 3rd has been observed as Patron Saint’s Day. In the good old days miners would sneak sticks of dynamite, every now and then, into their pants or lunch buckets and hoard them for the celebration. At sunset fires would be lighted near the church and around the cross on the mountain. Blasts would rattle the windows throughout the town. This might go on all night if the miners had had a successful year. Old women told the children it was to scare the devils away. On the morning of the third, mass was said, after which a procession climbed to the cross as an act of penance. Now the day is observed as a feast day with a dinner to which everyone interested is welcome, then mass, and a pilgrimage to the cross as an act of devotion.

The Protestant churches of Silver City sent their ministers to hold services in the school house or in individual homes during the ’70’s and ’80’s. Early in the ’90’s a regular Methodist minister, a Mr. Ruoff, was assigned to Pinos Altos and Central. He made his home here and succeeded in interesting the people in building a church under the auspices of the Methodist Extension Board. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bell donated a part of the Good Enough mining claim which they owned and had patented, for the site. The ladies gave box suppers, socials, bazaars to help raise money and the men promised regular contributions from their wages. The Hearst Interests were bringing in more men and more money, so a building seemed assured. Mrs. Phoebe Hearst visited the property at this time and became interested in the project, but she withheld her donation until the church board and the minister agreed to have a reading room for the miners in connection with the church, she paying the expenses. As a matter of economy, no extra room was added but the part near the front entrance was equipped with the necessary tables, chairs and stands, on which were placed local newspapers, and such magazines as the Review of Reviews, McClures, Scribners, Argosy, the old Life and Judge or Puck. Quite a diet for miners. Not one magazine for women or children. Mr. George Lincoln was in charge. At first the room was not popular. When Mr. Lincoln learned that the reason was that Catholics were not allowed to use a Protestant church, he suggested that the Ladies Aid make curtains that could be hung between the part used for the reading room and a part used for worship. This was done and the result was amazing. It was a very popular place until the Hearst people sold and Mrs. Hearst withdrew her support. There was a change in the camp. Many men in the more important positions and many miners followed Mr. Benjamin B. Thayer to Santa Rita, and the Comanche Company brought in their own men. It affected church life.

The Gold Avenue Methodist Church was dedicated on May 18, 1898, with the retiring pastor, Rev. Ruoff and the new pastor conducting the service. Rev. Henry Van Valkenburgh (now retired and living at Radium Springs) was the first pastor. He, too, served Central as well and was very popular in both towns. Everyone called him “Brother Van”. He was followed by Mr. Templin and Mr. Mussell. After them the Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal ministers came up for early morning or afternoon services. Even after regular preaching services were discontinued the building was used as a community center; the school held entertainments and programs there, the Forest Service showed films, a lecturer or a troupe of entertainers was welcome to use it. A few years ago an effort was made to use the building as a museum but the proposal came to naught. It has been sold to the Baptists who are using it for Bible School during summer months and for Sunday School regularly. It was feared that the bell would fall through the rotting platform on the tower so it was given to a rural church near Mountain Park, New Mexico.

Sunday School had been organized on Easter Sunday, April 21, 1889. The minutes of that meeting record that Mr. F. J. Davidson presided, Mr. W. H. Decker was elected Superintendent, Miss Lillie Stephens, secretary, Mrs. Stanley, treasurer. Mr. Davidson was chosen teacher of the Bible class, Mrs. W. E. Watson of the intermediate, and Miss Zella de Hymmel of the “Buds of Promise”. There were thirty-six in attendance and a collection of $3.20 was taken.

Twenty years later a special Easter program was given to observe its birthday. Names of the children who appeared in that program and who are still living nearby are Mary Jackson (Shotwell), Helen Hunt Jackson, Dorothy Davidson (Gray), Susie Frantern (Kern), Jennie Frantern (Christian) and Fred Stephenson.

As a concession to the Presbyterians a Christian Endeavor Society, rather than an Epworth League, was organized for the young people at the time the church was built. That and a Sunday School continued for many years. Music was a very important part of every service as there were many fine voices in the community. People lost interest in church affairs when mines closed and so many prominent families moved away. Then, too, the general use of the automobile and popularity of the movies furnished excuses for going to church in Silver City or to seek diversion and entertainment of other sorts.

Mines And Mining

As long as the gulches yielded a fair return in gold there was no so-called hard rock mining. Prospectors wandered over the hills, sampling the surface veins. The Atlantic and the Pacific, east and west of town, were located in 1861, also the Langston, but no development work was done. The next year the Locke lode, later called the Mountain Key, was discovered and years later became one of the richest producers. Surface ores were treated in 75 arrastras during the war years. Crude furnaces were used for the smelting of silver. Pinos Altos gold contains both silver and lead so has never received the highest price, being regarded at 70 per cent fine.

In July of 1866 Virgil Marton brought the first stamp mill by oxen from St. Louis, also a saw mill. Both were kept busy, one crushing the surface ores and the other cutting mining timbers and lumber for buildings from the heavy stand of pine and juniper adjacent to the camp. After transportation and other costs were deducted, he and his associates averaged $10.00 a day each from the investment and labor. Big money in those days. The next mines of importance to be located were the Aztec, Asiatic, Ohio, Mina Grande, Pacific No. 2, all west of town, and the Golden Giant which was practically in town. During ’68 and ’69 the Pacific alone furnished ores for 31 stamps and the product surpassed all expectations. From a geological point of view most of the gold bearing ores belong to the Cambrian period. A porphyritic dyke runs along the Pacific slope and tends to change the direction of the veins of ore. There is much malpais to the north and east but the old-timers believed that gold bearing rock lay underneath. John and Jacob Long found that to be true when they discovered rich veins that had been exposed by erosion. They called their claims the Osceola Group. They opened a shaft 60 feet deep and drifted along the vein for 70 feet, realizing from $50.00 to $400.00 a ton. The Atlantic and the Deep Down which adjoin the Osceola proved that rich ores were underneath the malpais.

The mines were not deep nor were the mining methods legitimate. The lead would be followed, hoping it would join another vein where the richest ore would be found. It was “gophered” out. Under the surface the quartz changed to base or sulphuric ores which could not be successfully treated with stamps. Peter Wagner erected a five-stamp mill and a concentrator, the first which could treat base ores.

Lunger and Company sank a shaft on the Mountain Key to a depth of 90 feet and found very rich ore. They sold the property to General Boyle and a stock company was organized with John Boyle, Jr., as manager. The shaft was deepened to 470 feet, exposing large ore bodies. In 1890 when James Jackson, who later became a well-known figure in mining circles, went to work at the Key, there were three shifts working with 200 men employed on each. The company built its own mill down Bear Creek where adequate water could be piped from Mill Creek. Two dams were built across Mill Creek and besides utilizing the water for the mill, in the winters ice was cut on the ponds and stored in an ice house for summer use by the townspeople. Then, as now, the canyon was a favorite picnic spot.

The Golden Giant, which was known locally as the “Gopher,” was a good producer. It was called the “Old Family Lode” during the ’60’s and ’70’s because it could be depended upon to furnish gold to the populace. Even today, after the rains Chelela, Loretto and Epifanio Cuebas find gold in the vicinity of the dump. Often when easy gold became scarce a claim was abandoned and open to relocation. A seventeen year old boy who had run away from his home in Texas wandered into town one day. He watched the miners washing gold and followed them to the store where the gold was weighed. The storekeeper became interested in the boy and let him have a prospector’s pick and gold pan. Each day the boy brought in a few colors and one day appeared with some fair sized nuggets. Upon investigation it was found that the ground adjoining the Gopher was open to location. The boy filed on the claim and went to work in earnest. One day a stranger came by and after watching him clean up at the end of the day, offered him $8,000.00 for his claim. The boy took it and went home with his fortune.

Boys went to work when they were fourteen. A man with his boys would work a property digging, timbering and hoisting the dirt from the shaft with a windlass and bucket. The ore was carefully sorted and any rock showing free gold was ground in a hand mortar. The results varied. Sometimes they would make but $10.00 a day but at others the man would carry $200.00 worth of gold home in his lunch pail. After a man had taken nearly $300.00 from the surface of the Mountain View he decided that was all and sold the claim for $10.00 to a Mr. Demorest. From his assessment work he realized $390.00 and that justified development work. In a short time he netted $20,000.00 and made more by selling while the showing was good. That was the surest way of making money and many operators followed that principle.

The three Dimmick brothers had homesteaded on Whiskey Creek in the late ’80’s. One day Clint was driving in the cows, he picked up a stone to throw at a laggard. The weight surprised him so he took out his knife to chip at it and found it to be native silver. It took many months to locate its source. Then in 1892 work was begun on the mine which they called the Silver Cell and a smelter was erected nearby. The native silver occurred in “chimneys” and when one was struck it was a bonanza—otherwise the mine yielded little, although it was worked for years.

It was not until 1883 that outside capital was sought. Then began a period of expansion with up-to-date equipment. Trolius Stephens and Nathaniel Bell interested a group of Californians and with them formed the Pinos Altos Mining Co., which was known locally as “Bell and Stephens”. The company acquired many of the mines, did development work and had them patented. The old Place and Johnson mill was repaired, increased to 15 stamp capacity with a first class concentrator, installed scales and built a tramway to the top of the mill where ore was dumped into bins and fed to the stamps. The camp not only hummed with activity but it pulsated with the steady pounding of the stamps. Every independent operator and lesser companies went to work with fresh enthusiasm from the 101 mill at the foot of the Big Hill to the Atlantic, from the Mountain Key to the Mammoth, from the Gopher to the old Skillicorn mill. If a necessary shutdown occurred at night the silence awakened all sleepers in the neighborhood.

Mr. George Hearst, who had cattle interests in the Southwest, heard of the mines and sent a young mining engineer, Benjamin B. Thayer, to investigate. He made a thorough examination and survey of all property and recommended the purchase as a good investment. Mr. Hearst died about this time and it was feared a sale would not be made. It was in May, 1896, that Mr. Bell took the result of one run of the mill into Silver City and displayed eight gold bricks in a pyramid a foot high, weighing 109½ pounds troy weight, and valued at $20,367.00. It was good advertising. Bell and Stephens wanted to sell and the Hearst heirs were interested. On August 10, 1897, the papers were signed transferring most of the Pinos Altos mining district and property within the town to Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, who signed for the Hearst interests.

The new company concentrated on the Pacific Group, but other mines were worked also—the Ohio, Mogul, Mina Grande. A smelter was built below Silver City to treat the ores, hauled there in mule drawn wagons. Articles of incorporation for a narrow gauge railroad, linking Silver City, Pinos Altos and Mogollon had been filed as early as 1889 and some preliminary surveys and grading done, then the venture was dropped. The Hearst Interests realized the advantage of such a road and began preparations to build a road connecting smelter and mines. A boarding and rooming house managed by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fox, was built on the flat below the mines to accommodate the workers on the railroad as well as many miners who daily walked or rode over the mountain to their work. Many cabins were built around the boarding house and it became quite a settlement. To get a supply of water the company bought a ranch at the cienega above Fort Bayard and piped the water from there to a reservoir at the foot of Rocky Point, then it was pumped to another in the gap between Baldback (where the police radio station is now), and the Pinos Altos Mountains. From there the water flowed by gravity to the mines and to the camp just below. When the government enlarged the Fort Bayard Reservation all the watershed was included and ranchers had to relinquish their water rights and sell.

The Hearst Company sold to the Comanche Mining and Smelting Co. in February, 1906. The Comanche continued work at the mines and built the long-talked-of narrow gauge. The smelter was the Silver City terminal and from there the road wound for 23 miles around hills, across bridges and up steep grades, rising about 3,000 feet to the crest. Machinery and supplies were hauled to the mines and ore taken to the smelter. James Roberts was the engineer. As an attraction at a Fourth of July celebration in Silver City an excursion over the road was featured. The ore cars were filled with merry makers who were truly thrilled by the ride. A short time later a party of inspectors visited the mines, coming up on the train. Going back to Silver City the brakes failed on a steep grade. The loaded train hurtled down the mountain, failed to make a bridge on a curve, and piled up in a gulch. One man was killed and Mr. Roberts was seriously injured. Thereafter only the crew was allowed to ride. The road was extended from the mines into town. The Keptwoman was to be the station. All work was completed but the bridge across Bear Creek. The panic of 1907 caused a slump and the Comanche became bankrupt. The locomotives and the ore cars were salvaged and the rest of the narrow gauge was sold as junk.