Silver City Revisited

 One of our favorite places to camp is at Rose Valley RV Park in Silver City.  Views from our site are gorgeous in the mornings and evenings, it is extremely quiet and yet we are close to all the amenities we could want.  Perfect combination!  Below is the view from our site in the outer row looking towards the east.

Silver City,  the one time Apache campsite and then a mining town has re-invented itself once again.  Besides a Mexican food haven, it now has numerous art galleries and an hippie-ish feeling to it.  Downtown is a cluster of colorful old buildings and many new murals.  You actually can stand in the middle of the street while taking a picture and not get run over!  We saw a lady pushing a stroller up the middle of one street while we ambled around. Below is one of my favorite corners because the building is so colorful.

Behind the wall is the local coffeehouse which is decorated with cholla cacti and metal.

The six of us ambled around the streets and at this point in time, were still required to have masks on even if we were outside!  The governor of New Mexico still had her clamps down even though the CDC had declared it was safe to go without masks and Silver City was enforcing the law.  As senior citizens we can still be a bit obstinate, so we took them off when we were by ourselves and no shop keepers were around to chastise us!

A new mural called The Pollinators is in the downtown area not far from the coffeehouse.  Of course, nothing is very far from each other in downtown Silver!  Old streets meet up with new murals.

Another new mural being worked on is on the wall by the Silver City Museum. It was built in 1881 and known  as the H.B. Ailman house. It was converted and used as a city hall from 1926-1931 and a  firehouse from 1931 to 1967.  It has been the museum since 1967 when the city re-purposed it once again.

I don't know how long the guitarist has been here, but obviously it's been a while! Don't you love his smile?

This is what the front of museum looks like. During the 1880's, that house must have seemed like a mansion! It was a symbol of wealth and opportunity to the community.

Hopefully, we will return in another 2-3 years to once again enjoy the sunrise view from site #60 and partake of burritos, tacos, enchiladas and sopapillas from various restaurants.

Adios, amigos!  Vaya con Dios.

 

Down Memory Lane

 Want to soak up the local history?  Well then, a visit to the local cemetery might fit the bill.  Or maybe not, if you are squeamish about walking around headstones with a "grave" look on your face.😂

We got our exercise and history lesson at the same time by walking over to the Silver City Cemetery located right next to Rose Valley RV Park.  It required a walk on a dusty gravel road to and from the cemetery, but the day was young and it was a gorgeous morning.  The sign at the entrance gave us a synopsis of important people who were buried here.

We were also told about a wall on the side that has mosaic images of the people listed above.  It is currently a work in progress, with some of the faces fully finished and other mosaics not started at all.

Mosaic picture of Ben Lilly, famous lion hunter and guide for Teddy Roosevelt.  He must have led an exciting life.

And below is the one for Billy the Kid's mother, Katherine Antrim who died in 1874.  Last time we were here, we found her grave, but not this year.

People are still being buried here with their loved ones.  Some of the family sections are clearly set off with iron fences or with cement curbing, many  have benches for family members to sit on.  Sadly, the old graves appear not to be maintained by the cemetery itself, becoming weedy and strewn with pieces of paper or tumbleweed pieces.

One of the interesting headstones I found was shaped like a cylinder.  Mr (or maybe Mrs.) Fitzsimmons lived from 1848 to 1905.  It was hard to read because it had been out in the weather for over 100 years.  This was a first time I've ever seen one shaped like this.  

Sandy, Jerry and I commented on the one below.  This lady outlived 3 different husbands!

The Town and Country Garden Club of Silver City maintains two rose gardens on the west end of the cemetery.  The gardens are on a small hill overlooking the grounds and hills beyond.

I had to lean over the wrought iron fence to get a close up of the gorgeous pink roses.  As the saying goes "Take time to stop and smell the roses".  I did just that.😊.  Then it was time to head back to our site at the RV park.

Fort Bayard

 We took a side trip to Fort Bayard that was established long ago in 1866.  The fort was needed to protect the people of Santa Clara from the fierce and mighty Chiricahua Apache warriors during that period of time.  Because the climate was dry and temperate, it transitioned over to a sanitorium for tuberculosis between 1900 and 1920.  Then Ft. Bayard was taken over by the V.A. and all five hospitals were phased out.

This 1885 hospital was vacant in 1945 when the U.S. government brought over German prisoners from the Lordsburg POW camp.  They were housed at Ft. Bayard and replaced the maintenance workers who were drafted for WWII.  I thought it was interesting that they were paid army private wages while there! 

The area for the plaza is now empty and many of the large trees that lined the streets have died .  Out of 400 buildings only 80 remain, most in dire need of paint and refurbishing.

You can see Don and Norm standing in the street.  No traffic at all to worry about!  Our group of 5 were the only ones wandering around.  Currently, they have tours each Saturday, but we left Silver City that morning.

There are eight large buildings still standing across from the plaza.  These were built for army officers and the doctors.  Below is the only building that has been refurbished and now is the start for the Saturday tours.  Wish we could have seen the inside and done the tour!  So much history to learn about this place!

Pictured below is the building that housed the army nurses and the one remaining Army sanitorium water tank. The building was built in 1910 on a hill that overlooked the 1885 hospital.

As I wandered around the grounds, I discovered an old playground for children. It was conveniently placed between the large double story buildings for the officers and the family houses on the next street. A concrete step over the cement lined ditch provided access for the officer's children.

One lone see-saw remains. It reminded me of my childhood days and being temporarily stuck on the top end while the other person sat on the ground!  These are things of the past, children's playgrounds today are completely different.

This is a view from the playground, showing the backs of the buildings, with clothes lines for each building.  I bet the clothes lines would have been used every day unless it was raining.

Can you imagine what it must have been like when this was a bustling fort filled with families in the middle of "nowhere"?  The roads were paved and there were even cement sidewalks! 

 Jerry ambled around and did a quick inspection on one of the houses.  He decided it would take a LOT of work to bring it up to code.

We both found a little cubby hole opening in the foundation of one building but decided against putting our head inside to take a further look.

Hopefully next time we visit here it will be on a weekend and a tour guide will show us around.