Chloride New Mexico

Mom and I went exploring on the nineteenth, once again searching for ghost towns. I realize that there are many ghost towns in the US but the west holds the mystery and romance.

The links below will take you to both sites. With Chloride I got a little carried away with the history and if you don’t want to read all of it just click on the number 9 and that will take you to the pictures.

Monticello New Mexico was our favorite. The town was built in a square fashion for protection from the Indians. Also a lot of the original buildings were still there. It was just a quaint little town.

We then journey to Chloride. It was a long, windy, lonely road, 34 miles from Truth or Consequences – right in the middle of nowhere. Chloride would be a true ghost town if it wasn’t for Don and Donna. They moved there in the 1970’s with the intentions of making it come to life again. They purchased the two remaining stores with the intentions of restoring them to their former selves. One of the buildings was an assay office and the other was the store. They did a wonderful job.

The treasure in this was the store. In the 1920’s the previous owner boarded up the windows and locked the door leaving inside all of the merchandise. It was a time capsule. Of course everything was littered with guano and bird poo which required days and months and probably years to clean. The store has everything in it, from food items to an old safe. It was the most fascinating museum I have ever gone through because everything was original and not replicas.

Donna was our tour guide and my favorite story she told of the history of Chloride was the one of a wonderful woman named Cassie.

Cassie married at 16 to a worthless cowboy. She never had anything, moved constantly until they moved to Chloride. With little to no money she created a beautiful home. If she wanted the pretty carved chairs that she had seen, she made it herself. She wore beautiful crocheted boots and shoes that she created herself with nothing but scrap wood. They are beautiful shoes. She made all of her own clothes and if she wanted something pretty on it she quilted, embroidered, or painted it on. She made baskets out of coffee cans using a tin snip and made photograph frames using the same method only she made it out of cans. She was an artist who truly saw beauty in everything. Her work is amazing. When she passed her sons came down to settle her estate. They only took the shotgun and told the Edmunds to throw the rest away. Fortunately the Edmunds kept everything and it is on display at the museum. I would have loved to have met this amazing woman.

Enjoy the pictures.


Click Here For Chloride New Mexico

Click Here For Ghost Towns