Towns Of The Sandia Mountains

Despite their seemingly impenetrable western facade, the Sandia Mountains of central New Mexico have been home to humankind for millennia. Ancient cultures ventured into these peaks for the creeks, game, and shelter. The Spanish established protective outposts along the canyons and intermarried with local tribes. Civil War soldiers passed through en route to their infamous battle at Glorieta Pass. Navajos marched around the mountains' southern end after the confinement that ended their Long Walk. Anglo settlers cleared the hilly land and built cabins. And tuberculosis patients moved up into primitive resorts, hoping that the mountains' abundant sunshine and fresh air would help them heal. Today the tiny resorts and traditional hamlets of the Sandias are established villages and communitiesAa-Carnuel, Tijeras, San Antonio, Cedar Crest, Sandia Park, San Antonito, Placitas, and othersAa-and the rough dirt roads that once saw the passing of ox carts are highways and even an interstate. The area's history lives on, however, in crumbling adobe walls, bits of rust, fading memories, and in this photographic retrospective.

The Galisteo Basin and the Cerrillos Hills, an ancient seabed ringed by ancient volcanic upheavals, are located in Central New Mexico. The region has been occupied for thousands of years. The oldest known turquoise mines in North America, as well as the earliest significant gold strike in North America, can be found in this region. The town of Galisteo was founded in 1617, while Los Cerrillos got its start as a railroad stop and regional center in 1880. Archaeological work on eight major Pueblo ruins was initiated in 1912 by Nels Nelson of the American Museum of Natural History. Many photographs from his expedition are found in this book, with several of them never having been published before. Also included are images of Cerrillos Hills mining in 1880; again, some of these photographs have never been previously published.

Promises of riches from gold, silver, copper and zinc ores attracted thousands of treasure seekers to the Land of Enchantment. Boomtowns blossomed across the rugged wilderness until the trifecta of the Silver Panic of 1893, World War I and the Great Depression collapsed the economy. Explore the vacant relics of once vibrant communities. Some are well preserved and others are but a whisper of their former selves, but all have a story to tell. From the lessons still scrawled across the chalkboards of the abandoned Cedarvale School to the forgotten talismans of the Turquoise Trail, accompany author Donna Blake Birchell on her trek through the ghost towns of New Mexico.