Abandoned New Mexico

Abandoned New Mexico: Ghost Towns, Endangered Architecture, and Hidden History encompasses huge swathes of time and space. As rural populations decline and young people move to ever-larger cities, much of our past is left behind. Out on the plains or along now-quiet highways, changes in modes of livelihood and transportation have moved only in one direction. Stately homes and hand-built schools, churches and bars--these are not just the stuff of individual lives, but of an entire culture. New Mexico, among the least-dense states in the country, was crossed by both the Spanish and Route 66; the railroad stretched toward every hopeful mine and outlaws died in its arms. Its pueblos are among the oldest human habitations in the U.S., and the first atomic bomb was detonated nearly dead in its center. John Mulhouse spent almost a decade documenting the forgotten corners of a state like no other through his popular City of Dust project. From the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert to the snow-capped Moreno Valley, travel through John's words and pictures across the legendary Land of Enchantment.--Back cover.

This useful guidebook surveys more than eighty ghost towns, grouped by geographic area. First published in 1981 and now available only from the University of New Mexico Press, it has been praised in particular for its instructions on how to reach even the most obscure sites.

Given in memory of Ethel A. Tsutsui, Ph.D. and Minoru Tsutsui, Ph.D.

The people, geological features, and historic events that have made New Mexico what it is today are commemorated in over 350 historic markers along the state's roads. This guide is designed to fill in the gaps and answer the questions those markers provoke.

Internationally renowned photographer Lucian Niemeyer and National Park Service historian Art G?mez have combined talents in a new presentation on New Mexico. Niemeyer's more than 150 color photographs encompass the entire state throughout the seasons presenting New Mexico's people, cultures, and magnificent scenery at the millennium. G?mez's sweeping history views the state in terms of corridors, geographic as well as cultural. New Mexico's mountains, deserts, and rivers form natural corridors that migrating birds and animals have traditionally used for survival. Navigating these same corridors across the state, human cultures of Paleo, Plains and Pueblo Indians, Hispanos, and Anglos forged viable communities on the astringent New Mexican landscape. Pueblo ancestors migrated from austere environments throughout the Southwest to more inviting surroundings on the Rio Grande. Plains Indians from the north and Hispano tradesmen from the south converged via the Camino Real. American settlers migrated west along the Santa Fe Trail, the southernmost corridor around the formidable Rocky Mountains. Improved transportation such as the railroad and later Route 66, precursors to the interstate highway system, annually lured new inhabitants to this compelling land called New Mexico.

This publication reviews both published and unpublished sources on Puebloan, Hispanic, and AngloAmerican irrigation systems in the Rio Grande Valley. Settlement patterns and Spanish and Mexican land grants in the valley are also discussed. The volume includes an annotated bibliography.