Ghost Town: Lake Valley New Mexico

Ghost Town: Lake Valley New Mexico

By Johnny Ramirez

The only thing you hear when you walk into Lake Valley is the creaking of the old Conoco sign as the breeze pushes it back and forth. The old convenience store was one of the final things built, its walls are still intact, and the windows are boarded up tight against vandals. Homes and buildings are scattered across the town site. Some are weathered and beat up, others are just piles of brick and wood, For most of them, though, all that remain are their cement foundations half buried in the dirt.

In its heyday, Lake Valley was a bustling mining town with over 4000 people.  It was a rough place, but with all the amenities including, shops, saloons, pharmacies, and brothels. The town was founded in 1878 when silver was found nearby. It turned out to be a large amount of exceptionally pure silver ore. One mine was named the Bridal Chamber because, in it, silver ore was so pure it hung and glittered from the ceiling like a beautiful chandelier. Over 3 million dollars of silver was extracted from that one mine alone. In 1884 the railroad was extended to the town allowing them to ship out silver more easily and for the town to grow. However, the town’s good fortune wasn’t meant to last.

In 1893 the Silver Panic caused the worst recession the nation would see until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Bad policymaking on the federal level caused the value of silver to be artificially inflated; when that bubble finally burst it caused the value of silver to plummet, and the people of Lake Valley without money.

Two years later, during the hardest time of the recession, a fire tore through downtown Lake Valley, burning up the majority of homes and businesses on main street. Either because they didn’t have the financial means, or they just gave up, the people of Lake Valley chose to not rebuild. They left the barren foundations as a reminder of their once prosperous town.

Finally, for the few who chose to stay and work the mines, a final blow. It turned out that the silver mines they found were the only ones. The silver ore veins that they found were unique to the area and there were no others to be mined.  The glittering silver of the Bridal Chamber was one-of-a-kind, and it would never be seen again.

A few families chose to stay long after the silver ran out. The final resident lived a lonely life in the town until his death in 1994 at the age of 90. Today all that remains are fallen buildings, hollowed out mines, and abandoned mining equipment scattered across the land.