Desert Diary
January 21, 2003

History/Hachita

 

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Mining has been a part of the Southwest since long before Europeans entered the region. It was tales of turquoise told by Native Americans that attracted miners to the Little Hatchet Mountains in southwestern New Mexico. These prospectors, entering the area around 1875, found not only fine turquoise, but precious metals that included copper, silver, and lead.

Despite the isolation in Apache country, mines developed, and the town of Eureka, later named Hachita, boomed. By 1884, some 300 souls called Hachita home. By their very nature, mining towns are ephemeral, built solely for exploitation of limited resources. As the valuable ores go, so goes the town. By 1890, only some 25 miners held on. The post office left in 1898 and, in 1902 in perhaps the greatest humiliation of all, even the name was taken away, applied to a town on the railroad 7 miles away. The coming of the railroad, with its cheap transportation of ore, briefly reinvigorated the mines, but today Old Hachita is one of the many ghost towns scattered across the Chihuahuan Desert.

Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.

Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.

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