The ghost place of Georgetown on the sunny Mimbres river in
southern New Mexico started as a silver town after the Civil War.
Soon the rich ore finds ballooned the settlement into one of the
largest mining camps in the Territory. Some of the famous mines
that produced millions of dollars in ore were the Naiad Queen,
the Commercial, the Silver Bell, the MacGregor and the Quien
Sabe.
Georgetown sprawled across a gulch and was divided into
three sections. The commercial area was in the center. In the
southern section were the miners' quarters, saloons, jail, bawdy
houses and shacks. In the northern part of town were the
churches, schools and better residences. Gambling was wide
open and there were many killings. Just out of town on the
nearby ranches there was cattle rustling.
Today when you visit Georgetown, you'll see only an old
building or two. The pinon-and-cedar-grown hills are the same
that sheltered the town when the canyons echoed with the clatter
of ore cars being loaded. The hillside cemetery sleeps under a
thick forest of pinons. The many little headstones marking the
graves are evidence of the diphtheria epidemic that took its toll in
babies. One grave after another, some with sentimental
inscriptions on their markers, are of young children. One even
names a fifteen-year-old bride. These are the sad reminders of a
town I s being here. Georgetown is a real ghost town.
But the settlement isn It the first abandoned village here.
Prehistoric Indians made their homes along the Mimbres
centuries ago, Archaeologists have found pueblos, village sites,
caves and sacred springs of these ancient southwest Indian
tribes. In later years the Mimbreno Apaches camped here while
they raided and killed in the surrounding country.
The Indians are gone; so are most of their settlements. The
miners and their town are gone-gone-disappeared into the past.
Even the Mimbres river disappears into-the sand a few miles
away.
This ghost camp lies eight miles northeast of Santa Rita. Here
take State Highway 61 to the town of Mimbres. Then turn left.
Three miles later you are in Georgetown that used to be-- a big
wild town.