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Lordsburg Guide
Last updated on Friday, February 21, 2003
When concrete, crime and commotion drive you away in search of renewal, a trek to New Mexico's upper boothill can cleanse the spirit of sludge and jitters. Out in the desert, your only pressure is a gust of wind flapping your clothes and tousling your tresses. Your music, piped over sun-drenched airwaves, is the hum of the wind looping through mountains, carrying celestial strains of songbirds out through the valley and back again to your senses. Uncle Wayne was arguing with Mike near a newly acquired stack of old lumber, the soon to be rock shop, and trading post. Uncle Wayne said, "We don't need no fancy dry goods, just maybe tobacco, flour, axle grease, salt, and beans. A respectable line of frontier groceries." Down in southwestern New Mexico, just above the bootheel and a hair away from the Arizona border, lies a rockhounder's paradise, an adventurer's enticement, a child's fun fix. Granite Gap - words synonymous with "home" for 2,000 miners and their families a hundred years ago - has since October 1996 been resurrected as an area attraction dubbed Granite Gap Ghost Mining Camp. The rugged Old West town known as Lordsburg is located in Southwest New Mexico's bootheel by Interstate 10, 24 miles east of the Arizona border. The Lordsburg of today is a quiet community compared to its earlier shoot-em-up days. Life was lively and sometimes perilous around 1880 when the Santa Fe Railroad was constructed and Lordsburg was founded. "How heavy were the gold bars Curly Bill's gang stole anyway?" Uncle Wayne asked. "Well," I said, "from what I've read the bricks were probably three-hundred pounds each. Made it impossible for pack mules to carry them off in case of a stage robbery." "Yeh," Mike said, "it would take two bricks to make a pack balance, way too heavy for any pack animal besides a camel or elephant!" Uncle Wayne chuckled and said, "Besides that, a camel or elephant would be easy trackin' . . . each dung pile'd fill an ore car." So you've decided to explore Southern New Mexico. You have your road maps, a cooler of food and beverages, and jugs of water in the back just in case. You set out across broad basins under an ocean of blue sky, wandering over rugged mountains rising up from the surrounding plains. The rolling massiveness of the Cooks Range, the rocky needles of the Organ Mountains, and the lofty heights of the Mogollons inspire you. You're an idealist. But no matter how romantic your impressions may be, no matter how much the bright sunshine makes the expansive scenery glitter, the chances are what you won't be thinking about is a fortune in gold. As you gaze out over the enchanting vistas, odds are you won't be imagining a long, trailing caravan of Spaniards and Indians trekking over ridges and basins in search of a golden legend.
It's no secret why we call New Mexico the Land of Enchantment. Our state possesses some of the nation's most beautiful natural wonders, including Carlsbad Caverns, Taos' Moreno Valley and White Sands National Monument.
Having grown up in Silver City at the doorstep of the Gila National Forest, I have always felt very lucky to have come from such a special place. During my time as a Senator, I've worked to help promote New Mexico and its splendor as a tourist destination - because it's important to our people, our economy and also our sense of pride in our home state.
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