Another Ghost Town: Cedarvale

With so many restrictions on what we can/should do these days, it seemed like a good time to explore some New Mexico ghost towns.  We packed a picnic lunch and the camera and headed off looking for an abandoned place.

In the early 1900's, hundreds of homesteaders from other states arrived on “immigrant trains." Most were looking to plant pinto beans. The relatively high altitude (6,384 ft) and short growing season of central New Mexico was good for the beans, which could be dry farmed and were in demand, particularly once World War I began and pinto beans were used to feed soldiers. Come fall, the harvest was stored in Cedarvale’s three elevators.  The school was built in 1917.  Bad farming practices and drought eventually exhausted the soil, and by the late 1930's, the population began to depart.  The school was closed in 1953, and is now beyond restoration.  Nearby, there is a side road with maybe 6 or 7 houses, two or three of which appear to be inhabited.  Otherwise, there is a vast expanse of desert with some fencing and a few cows and horses.  There appears to be nothing else between the school and the distant mountains.

A ghost town and two canyons

 It's fall break in Albuquerque, and the balloon fiesta has been canceled.  It's not safe to be around other people, and yet we want to do something different...  A ghost town!  It's perfect!

Kelly, New Mexico was a mining town in the late 1800's, with churches, saloons, mercantile stores, banks, and a clinic.  Silver was discovered first around 1866, and eventually it became a zinc mine.  When the zinc was gone in the 1930's, Kelly began to die out as a town and the last residents left in 1947, moving some of the buildings to Magdalena, a few miles away.  

What you can see now is an historic mine head designed by the French architect Eiffel (yes, that one), a few remnants of walls and foundations, and some filled-in vent shafts.  

We drove up a dirt road past the old Baptist church (the only building that still seems to be maintained) and parked the truck where we could look at the view while we ate lunch.  

After exploring the area and hiking up to a nearby peak, we said goodbye to the ghosts of Kelly and headed home.  But we had seen two side roads on our way that we still wanted to explore.  The first led to Water Canyon. 

We didn't hike in Water Canyon, we just took some photos from the road.

The second side road had a sign and arrow that simply said, "The Box."  Well, how could we just drive by that?  There was a bit more information when we arrived.  It is a box canyon popular with technical climbers.  Not being a technical climber, I only climbed as far as the lowest line of caves, and I climbed up without a camera, so we'll have to visit again some other time to do it justice.

It was a beautiful day.  It is still very hazy here from smoke from the wildfires in California, so our pictures don't all show the typical New Mexico bright blue sky.  But we had a great time exploring some new places.