Lake Valley was a silver-mining town in Sierra County, U.S. state of

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. The 'heyday' of the town was from 1881 to 1893. The last resident departed in 1994. The present day

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

is deserted.

Access

The townsite of Lake Valley is partly privately owned, and partly owned by the U.S.

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

, which has restricted access to the old buildings to daylight hours, to prevent vandalism. There is a self-guided walking tour for visitors. The town is closed to the public on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

History

A rancher found the Lake Valley

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

deposits in Sierra County in 1876. Two years later he sold his claims to an engineer, who began mining. The deposits are bedded '' manto''-type deposits in Paleozoic limestone. The mines produced well for a few years after miners tunneled into a silver-lined cavity they named the "bridal chamber" that alone yielded 2.5 million

troy ounce Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in the Kingdom of England in the 15th century and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 p ...

s (78 tonnes) of silver. In 1881 the property was sold to mine promoters George D. Roberts and

Whitaker Wright James Whitaker Wright (9 February 1846 – 26 January 1904) was a company promoter and swindler, who committed suicide at the Royal Courts of Justice in London immediately following his conviction for fraud. Early life The eldest of five child ...

, who split the property among five companies: Sierra Apache Co., Sierra Bella Co., Sierra Grande Co., Sierra Madre Co., and the Sierra Plata Co., and stock was sold widely in the east. Despite the brief wealth of the bridal chamber, shareholders in all five companies lost money. In 1881, a party of Lake Valley miners formed a posse to pursue a band of

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

s that had raided the town of Hillsboro. The Apaches caught them in an ambush. The bridal chamber was worked out by 1883. Although a railroad line reached Lake Valley in 1884, the mines struggled and were worked only periodically into the 20th century. Total production of the Lake Valley district through 1931 was 5.8 million ounces (180 tonnes) of silver. The mines reopened during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

to produce manganese, and continued operating into the 1950s. Lake Valley had a post office from 1882 until 1955.

Geography

The townsite is along NM 27, south of Hillsboro, and west of Hatch, at . It is at an elevation of in Sierra County.

Geology

Lake Valley is located in a structurally elevated

fault block Fault blocks are very large blocks of rock, sometimes hundreds of kilometres in extent, created by Tectonics, tectonic and localized stresses in Crust (geology), Earth's crust. Large areas of bedrock are broken up into blocks by Fault (geology) ...

underlain mainly by

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

through

Pennsylvanian Pennsylvanian may refer to: * A person or thing from Pennsylvania * Pennsylvanian (geology) The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, on the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS geologic timesc ...

sedimentary rocks Sedimentary rocks are types of rock formed by the cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or deposited at Earth's surface. Sedim ...

; ore deposits are stratabound and confined to Lower Mississippian

Lake Valley Limestone The Lake Valley Limestone is a geologic formation widely exposed in southwestern New Mexico. It preserves fossils dating back to the lower to middle Mississippian. Description The Lake Valley Limestone consists of gray cherty limestone with thi ...

carbonate rocks Carbonate rocks are a class of sedimentary rocks composed primarily of carbonate minerals. The two major types are limestone, which is composed of calcite or aragonite (different crystal forms of CaCO3), and Dolomite (rock), dolomite rock (also kn ...

. The Lake Valley and Berrenda faults are the major structural features in the area.

Notable people

* "Longhair" Jim Courtright, became town sheriff in 1882 * Benjamin Silliman Jr. examined the properties as a mining consultant *

visited the properties and organized the mining companies

References

External links

Photos of Lake Valley

BLM ''American Frontiers'' web page for Lake Valley

Public Lands Museum: ''Lake Valley, a relic of the wild west''
{{authority control Ghost towns in New Mexico Mines in New Mexico Mining communities in New Mexico Protected areas of Sierra County, New Mexico History of Sierra County, New Mexico 1878 establishments in New Mexico Territory 1880s in New Mexico Territory