18-GHOST TOWNS

In addition to our love of petroglyphs, we also love ghost towns. If you are wondering what causes our attraction to things this old…well, I wonder that, too. Maybe as old people we have an affinity for really old things.

Anyway, Pinos Altos is just a few miles outside of Silver City. It is a “living ghost town,” meaning that there are a few people still living there. I had read a little about this place on the web and had high hopes for fun things to find there. Well here’s what we found.

A church that is converted to an art gallery…but with a sign that said it was open summer weekends only. Bummer! This is February!

There was a broken down cabin that is typical of ghost towns…

…an old store…

…and a replica of an old fort…also open only summer weekends. This was disappointing.

On the other side of the street was the old Buckhorn Saloon and opera house.

Back at the RV park, I talked to the lady in the office about what we “didn’t find in Pinos Altos.” She understood but said that the Buckhorn Saloon was a working restaurant that came highly recommended and a visit there should not be missed.

So the next evening we went back to Buckhorn Saloon with reservations for dinner.

Inside the décor was probably a lot like it had been 100 years ago.

There was a buffalo head over the bar and the usual naked lady pictures that were common in old saloons. These, no doubt, were original.

I didn’t take pictures of any of them because they were so BAD. Not necessarily in a sexual way, just really, really bad art!! Probably painted many years ago by someone who was a very poor artist and who painted for booze (and was probably drinking his salary as he painted).

There were a pictures of Cochise and Geronimo in the Opera House. They were both active in the Apache wars that took place in this area.

In the dining room was a large frame full of Indian artifacts that contained a lot of intricate beaded pieces among other things.

The dinner menu included the usual steaks and burgers as well as duck and quail. The food was good and the atmosphere better. However it was very dark in there, making taking pictures difficult. I used the flashlight on my cell phone to help us read the menu.

The next day we drove about an hour northwest of Silver City to see The Catwalk. The Catwalk is a very narrow canyon that has a two mile hiking trail that runs alongside a stream through the canyon. There are metal walkways just above the water. I saw pictures on the web and was intrigued by what I saw.

I couldn’t wait to hike this. However, after arriving at the nearest town to this location, we found a large orange sign saying The Catwalk was closed!

We stopped at a small nearby store and talked to the lady there. She told us that in September there was a nine inch rain that came down in about four hours one night and flooded out The Catwalk and filled it with boulders. They hope to get the parking lot and picnic area open by April, but don’t know if they will ever get The Catwalk itself back to what it was. Very disappointing.

BUT…all was not lost as we found there was another living ghost town just a few miles away. The lady told us it had been hit by the same storm but that you could drive up there if you ignored all the “Road Closed” signs.

It was a sapphire blue-sky day for our drive, nine miles off the main road to the ghost town, Mogollon, ( “Muggy-yon”) so off we went .

We did ignore the “Road Closed” signs and although the road was rugged, it was not closed.

The road was mostly one lane, really rough with numerous blind curves.

Part of the way up we saw a dirt side road and a sign that said it was 1-1/2 miles to a trail head.

This was a really scary road. There was no way to meet a car coming down hill. There were beautiful views as we exceeded 7,000 elevation.

Did I mention it was a ROUGH road? A Jeep road?

But the payoff was beautiful views. Finally it dead-ended at a trail head and we headed back down, still praying for no oncoming traffic.

The main road the rest of the way into Mogollon was really bad but felt like a freeway compared to the one we had just been on.

The road into Mogollon was depressing. The storm had pretty much trashed whatever had been there. The road showed evidence that there had been some plowing done, but it was still a mess.

A few businesses like this store and an Inn, had a deep ditch washed out in front and no bridges left to get from the street to the door.

As badly damaged as Mogollon was, it was interesting. Originally this town had had a population of thousands and they mined both silver and gold. As a result there was a lot of mine artifacts and ruins still laying around, right where they were last used.

These mine cars were set up on tracks in the middle of town.

There were rusted out cars and lots of outhouses, especially near the approximate dozen homes that were still lived in. Obviously, there is no sewer system in this town. Just makes you want to move there, doesn’t it?

We saw a sign pointing to, “Cemetery,” so headed up a canyon on another rather miserable road. It was another Jeep road, but a pretty (though slow) drive for a couple rocky miles.

There were lots of signs of mining in bygone years.

When we arrived at the cemetery, we were surprised at how large it actually was.

We expected a small plot. It was in horrible condition, totally uncared for, which was sad.

A number of the markers were hand made of metal or wood. This one and several others had a string of tiny beads on them indicating that someone still cared. The interesting thing was that they all had the original paper tag on them that said, “Made in China.”

We noticed that many of the deaths occurred around 1914-1916. We found later that there had been a epidemic in that time period that took many lives.

On our way out of town we saw an older lady working along the edge of the road cutting up some of the wood that had washed up along the street. Her leathered face made her look to be in the upper 80’s, if not more. If she hadn’t been a lady, I would have referred to her as a “Desert Rat.”

Anyway, we stopped and talked to her a bit. She told us about the night of the storm and all the damage it had done. She also told us that she manages the Inn when it is open and running.

The town still looks like if there were another hard rain of only a couple of inches, that this would be a death trap. However, she indicated she felt safe. I’ll not be staying at her Inn anytime soon.

Well, it wasn’t The Catwalk, but it was an interesting side trip.

On our last day in Silver City we went to a couple more nearby ghost towns, Hanover and Fiero. You couldn’t tell where one stopped and the other started. People still live in Hanover but there is an area of ruins, mostly along a creek bed.

There were all the usual ruins except for one…

Behind this concrete wall was a much longer wall completely covered with graffiti. On the front of this is written, “Bless Cops, Romans 13.”

That puzzled me so I looked up Romans 13. The first seven verses talk about obeying the authorities and not breaking the law. So did this person thing that painting graffiti was legal?? Or was it an instance of ‘Do what I say, not as I do?”

Next we spend the night in Casa Grande, AZ visiting friends from Sunriver before heading to Yuma for a few days.