Boom and Bust
The ghost town of Lake Valley, N.M., is reborn as a tourist attraction.
By David Pike | Online Only | July 11, 2001
Lake Valley's schoolhouse is now a museum.
Credit: David Pike
In 1882, prospectors working George Daly's mine in southwestern New Mexico stumbled on a 100-foot-wide chasm lined with silver so pure it melted from the walls under a single candle flame. Dubbed the Bridal Chamber, the hollow contained the richest single body of silver ore ever discovered in the state. A settlement, first called Daly but later renamed Lake Valley, evolved nearby. The desert town grew quickly, with stamp mills, saloons, smelters, hotels, stores, a school, and a population of more than a thousand people.
You wouldn't know it today, after rounding a corner on lonely Highway 27 and seeing the vestiges of the town's glory: fewer than 20 abandoned stone and adobe buildings scattered at the base of Monument Peak. Though the ghost town of Lake Valley is now more ghost than it is town, it is far from being dead.
Lake Valley
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which administers 264 million acres of the country's public lands, is renovating Lake Valley's structures so the public can visit and learn about mining history from the town. Since 1991, the agency has purchased or received as donations a chapel, schoolhouse, the remains of a corral, and two former private residences.
"If it weren't for the Lake Valleys, we wouldn't have the economies we do today," says Pamela Smith, the agency's archaeologist working on the town. "Mining pulled people to the West and was a significant part of the history of the United States. Our goal in preserving Lake Valley is to help people become aware of this aspect of their past."
With that goal in mind, the agency recently restored the Chapel of Saint Columbia, whose unstable walls and floors threatened to collapse. It re-plastered the walls, replaced the floor, and sent the organ and pews out for refurbishing.
Agency workers have also restored the large, one-story schoolhouse on a hill east of town. For years, local ranchers held dances in the building, marking Lake Valley's final days in three-quarter time. Today, the school has been transformed into a museum with desks, photographs, and newspaper clippings, and two full-time volunteer caretakers live behind it.
"I don't get lonely," says Wilma Cadell, who, with her husband, greets visiting snowbirds, ghost town enthusiasts, researchers, and history buffs, while protecting the property from vandals. "Today we had three visitors. Yesterday, 13. People tell me, ‘This can't be a ghost town: You live here!'"
Silver Rush
In the predictable arc of southwestern mining camp-turned-ghost town, the devaluation of silver in 1893 delivered a fatal blow to Lake Valley. A fire razed Main Street two years later, and as the mines emptied, the cemetery on the hill soon had more occupants than the town itself. The last resident, Savina Martinez, moved away in 1994 after her husband died. Then the BLM stepped in to dust off the boom-and-bust town.
"Some buildings are in pretty bad shape," says Oswald "Oz" Gomez, an outdoor recreation planner for the BLM and the man in charge of Lake Valley today. "They'll soon deteriorate to the point where they can't be used anymore. Some are already so far gone that we can't return them to their original state."
The Conoco station may be renovated next.
Credit: David Pike
The agency has set its sights on the stone service station, at the western end of Railroad Avenue, still in excellent shape because it was built after the mining boom. The station boasts a brilliant red Conoco sign, a status symbol that seems odd in the deserted town. If the agency can acquire it and other privately owned buildings, it can keep the ghost town from disappearing, and people can once again stroll down Main Street.
Lake Valley has settled peacefully into its old age. In its heyday, it endured flashes of violence. In fact, George Daly never knew about Lake Valley or the wonders in his mine. On the very day of the Bridal Chamber discovery, Daly was killed while leading the militia against a band of Apaches.
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