A Recent Ghost Town

  Nine miles west of Lordsburg is the abandoned town of Road Forks. This once thriving tourist stop has  abandoned very recently. I know the town was still active in the fall of 2005, but when I went though there in September of 2008, I noticed that is was completely and utterly abandoned. After looking at the buildings, I guessed that they had all been abandoned at least a year. At any rate, the desertion of this dimunitive little town is pretty recent.
  Road Forks was never a large town. It never had more than 30 people and, most of the time, the population was around 20, with most of the employees driving out from Lordsburg everyday. Road Forks may have been tiny, but it was a thriving place. It had the Shady Grove Truck Stop, which had restaurant, gift store and convenience store.  There was another small cafe, a campground and a motel. The motel had approximately 100 rooms, but now is completely abandoned like the rest of Road Forks. The motel's parking lot has weeds growing up through cracks on the pavement. I did not get a look inside any of the rooms, but the motel appears to still be in good condition. The former truck stop has taken on a forlorn look to it with some windows already broken even though it was only abandoned recently. the handful of houses in this little town are all abandoned.
  Road Forks was first settled by the G.H. Porter family in 1925 was a succession of rough trails and roads was starting to be upgraded into the system of paved highways that we are all familiar with today.
  The town was further developed by John Graham in the 1930s and the Graham family continued to own all of the businesses in town until its abandonment.
  Road Forks was located on U.S. Highway 80 in southwestern New Mexico just 11 miles from the Arizona border. It was situated where Highway 80, once called the "Broadway of America," made a sharp turn southward to wend its way to Douglas, Arizona on the Mexican border. When highway 80 made this sharp, southward turn, State Highway 14 continued straight ahead and actually provided the most direct route to Tucson and points west. New Mexico State Highway 14 became State Highway 86 in Arizona and this highway reconnected with U.S. Highway 80 at Benson, Arizona, 45 miles east of Tucson. This state highway has been supplanted by Interstate 10. So Road Forks was located at a strategic crossroads and was a very active, albeit small, travel stop.   

A Tourist Town, Of Sorts

  Today, the economic mainstays for Lordsburg are the county government, the railroad, ranching, some mining and traffic on Interstate 10, which nourished travelers with a handful of motels, restaurants and gas stations. In spite of this, the population has taken a nosedive over the past half century and does not show any signs of recovery.
  However, Lordsburg should definitely be seen by everyone. Why? Because it is the anti-Santa Fe. it is a New Mexico town that is the complete opposite of Santa Fe. Lordsburg is about as far away from Santa Fe culturally, geographically and in terms of appearance among New Mexico cities and towns as you can get. Lordsburg is not beautiful, it is not prosperous, it is not wealthy, it is not thriving, it is not a center of power, it is not a tourist destination, it does not have a rosy outlook for the future, it does not ooze ancient Spanish culture. In fact the only adobe building to be found in Lordsburg is the library, located next to the Hidalgo County Courthouse and was deliberately built in the 'Territorial style' to make a statement that this is New Mexico, a state that looks different from any other state. It is most likely fake adobe plaster, but it still has the "New Mexico look" to it, which is an anomaly in this dying ranching and railroad town.
  The Hidalgo County Courthouse on South Shakespeare Street is an attractive, 2-story, red brick building. It, the library and the post office are pretty much surrounded by abandoned buildings.
  Lordsburg has two claims to fame. First, it has the oldest airport in New Mexico. Lordsburg Municipal Airport began operations in December, 1938 and the state song of New Mexico was written by a Lordsburg resident.
" O Fair New Mexico" was written by Elizabeth Garrett, daughter of famed Lincoln County Sheriff  Pat Garrett. Pat Garrett is one of the more famous people from the "Wild West" days. " O Fair New Mexico" was adopted as the state song by the New Mexico state legislature in March of 1917. New Mexico does have another state song, a Spanish language one. It is called " Asi Es Nuevo Mexico."

A Lakeside Town

Lordsburg is known for its sandstorms. Yep, that is their 'claim to fame.' A few miles west of town are four dry lake beds--very large dry lake beds. They are called North Tobosa Lake, South Tobosa Lake, Antelope Lake and Playa de los Pinos. Interstate 10 bisects South Tobosa Lake, the largest one.  These dry lakes are oriented northwest to southeast. Playa de los Pinos straddles the Arizona border.  Frequently, the motels in Lordsburg fill up when dust storms rage for hours on end. At the same time, motels in Willcox, Arizona, 67 miles west of Lordsburg, also fill up when the sandstorms are out of control.
  A few years ago, The Weather Channel, on the series "Storm Stories," did a story about a multi-car pileup that resulted from one of these epic sandstorms. The epicenter of this particular sandstorm was in Arizona, between the moribund towns of Bowie and San Simon. These towns are between Willcox, Arizona and the dry lake beds. The effects of these sandstorms reach far and wide across the area.
  I experienced one of these epic storms myself one time when I was on vacation in the late 1990s. I had already been hearing radio reports about the raging sandstorm west of Lordsburg, but when I got my first glimpse of it after cresting the Continental Divide 24 miles northeast of Lordsburg, I was stunned! I have driven this highway several other times and I have always admired the view from the crest of the Continental Divide on State Highway 90 between Lordsburg and Silver City. Usually, this lookout affords a fantastic view of the Animas Mountains, south of Lordsburg; the Peloncillo Mountains, west of Lordsburg (near the Arizona border) and even the famous Chiricahua Mountains, which are about 40 miles away in southeast Arizona. I could not see any of these mountain ranges on that day. I could not even see the Pyramid Hills, which are only one mile south of Lordsburg! The interstate crosses South Tobosa Lake between exits 5 and 9 ( 5 miles and 9 miles from the Arizona border) and eastbound traffic was backed up from roughly milepost 6 (according to the radio reports) and San Simon, Arizona; 18 miles away! This lake is about 10 miles west of Lordsburg.
  I was forced to get a motel room in Lordsburg even though I arrived in town at 2:30 in the afternoon! Fortunately I was able to get a room, one of few left in town. I got a room on the beleagured stretch of Motel Drive (Old U.S. Highway 80) at a motel that is surrounded by abandoned buildings and across the street from a busy railroad. It was not the best of accommodations, but at least I was out of the dust. Traffic on the interstate was backed up all the way through Lordsburg! The sandstorm had started at approximately 10:00 that morning and raged out of control until about 1:30 the next morning. When I went out and drove around town or went to eat dinner or go to a convenience store, I had to put a shirt in front of my face to keep dust out of me mouth, nose and eyes. I got an idea of what it was like during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. The next morning, when I went to eat breakfast before checking out of my room, I had a very thick coating of dust on my truck and I had to thoroughly clean the windows before I could drive away. There was even a fine coating of dust was all over the inside of my truck also!

A Beleaguered County Seat, part 2

 In the days before Interstate highways, Lordsburg was a humming place because it lay at the junction of two major highways, which enticed travelers to stop and spend their money because of the distance to the next sizable town. In its heyday, Lordsburg had  21 motels, 20 cafes or formal restaurants 31 gas stations. Nearly all of these business establishments were located along U.S. Highway 80, which parallels the railroad tracks on the south side. In town, Highway 80 was once known as First Street, but, in later years, the name was changed to Motel Drive, the name it goes by today. I think First Street is a much better name.  A few of these businesses were located along U.S. Highway 70, but Highway 80 was the place to be in Lordsburg. In addition to all of the motels, restaurants and gas stations, First Street, a.k.a. Motel Drive, was lined with gift shops, car garages, automobile dealerships and anything else you can think of. Today, Motel Drive has been called a "motel ghost town" by some people, a vision of a post-apocalyptic world by others.
  In September of 2009, my most recent trip to Lordsburg, I spent the night on the far west end of Lordsburg at a national chain motel near its junction with Interstate 10.While I was there, I drove up and down Motel Drive several times and counted 12 abandoned motels, 22 abandoned gas stations and 14 deserted restaurants or cafes. Other businesses of this type used to exist also, but have long since been demolished, as testified by the numerous concrete slabs or foundations that line the street. Motel Drive was recently listed as one of "America's Most Endangered Places." There are only three operating motels on the street today and I don't remember how many gas stations, but no more than 3 or 4. The only operating restaurants on the street today are at truck stops on the east side of town.
  Motel Drive is no longer the busiest street in Lordsburg. In fact, it is very under utilized in the present day. It is a very wide street with very little traffic. The busiest street in Lordsburg today is South Main Street, which is part of a short state highway (494) that dead ends at the entrance to a ghost town 3 miles south of Lordsburg. South Main Street's exit with Interstate 10 is the hub of Lordsburg today. This is where most of the motels and other travel related business are clustered today. In total, Lordsburg today has 11 motels, 7 gas stations and 14 cafes or restaurants. Most of the eating establishments are either fast food places or are affiliated with motels or truck stops.
  When it was announced that Interstate 10 would be built through the south side of Lordsburg, the state offered to elevate the freeway through town so travelers could look down and see the town and be more willing to stop there and patronize the businesses. This tactic did not work, however, because Lordsburg has fallen on very hard times since the freeway opened up.
  At the same time, the businesses that are clustered next to the freeway are the town's major economic engine and have, in a way, prevented the town from dying off even more than it has. In fact, when I was there late last summer, I saw a Hampton Inn & Suites under construction. Seeing that surprised me and it might be a good sign for the struggling town. 
 

A Beleaguered County Seat

The most recent population for Lordsburg is 2,582. The population peaked at 4,712. That is a significant drop-nearly 50%. However, at least from an economic standpoint, it looks like the population loss has been more than that. In some aspects, Interstate 10 killed Lordsburg. In other aspects, Interstate 10 in saving Lordsburg. Let me explain. Before Interstate 10 was built through the area, U.S. Highway 80 was the principal highway through the area. This highway, while not as famous as U.S. Highway 66, a.k.a. "The Main Street of America," was still famous in its own right. route 80 was frequently called "The Broadway of America" and once ran from Tybee Island, Georgia to San Diego, California. Unlike route 66, however, U.S. highway 80 is not completely dead or decertified. It still exists in its eastern portion. It still begins in Tybee Island, Georgia, but now it ends in Dallas, Texas. Everything west of Dallas has been decertified. In places it is still a federal highway, such as Interstate 10 Business Loop through a number of towns. In other places it is now a city street or a county road. In other places it is a state highway. An example of this is in the El Paso, Texas area where Route 80 is now State Highway 20 and west of Lordsburg, where the old highway splits off of Interstate 10 and runs southwest to Douglas, Arizona and then back northwest to Benson, Arizona. It is known as State Highway 80 in both states. In still other places, old highway 80 is completely and utterly abandoned, in varying states of disrepair. There are also some places where the former "Broadway of America" is completely buried underneath Interstate 10 or even Interstate 20 farther east.
  Lordsburg was situated at the junction on U.S. Highway and U.S. Highway 70. These 2 highways, along with the railroad  and the town's relative isolation made Lordsburg boom. In fact, the railroad gave birth to Lordsburg in 1881 when a second transcontinental route was being pushed westward across the southern United States. Lolrdsburg is even named for a railroad engineer, Delbert Lord. some sources say the town was named for a New Yorker named Charles Lord, but I believe that is very unlikely. The town and railroad have been intertwined since day one.

A Dwindling Population

From Virden, it is 27 miles southeast to Lordsburg, the county seat of Hidalgo County and, by far, the biggest town in the county.  Currently, Hidalgo County has 4,844 people,  according to the Census Bureau, which represents a significant drop from the 2000 Census count of 5,932. From information I have gathered, however, I believe the county's population is lower than that, about 4,000. Judging from what I have seen (or not seen), this figure makes more sense because, outside of Lordsburg, there are not that many people in the county. The county is, for the most part, unpopulated.  In the 1950 Census, for example, Hidalgo County had  5,095 people with 3,525 of those people living in Lordsburg. Lordsburg had about 75% of the county's population and that has been the trend in the decades hence. But according to most recent figures, Lordsburg only has about half of the county's population, which makes it look like the rest of the county has gained population or possibly shrunk at an insignificant rate compared to Lordsburg  and that is not the case.  
  Hidalgo County had 6,049 people in the 1980 Census, but unofficially reached its peak in 1966 with 6,547 people. That is also the year that Lordsburg reached its peak population of 4,712. Since 1966 was not a Census year, that figure is not official, but accurate nevertheless.
  Since the 2000 Census, the population of Hidalgo County and Lordsburg has spiraled downward. In 2000, Lordsburg had 3,379 people and the population had fluctuated at roughly 3,000 for several decades. In the last 10 years, however, the population has dropped to 2,582, but seems to be leveling off.
  In the past decade, a company owned mining town in Hidalgo County, Playas, has been shut down and was purchased by New Mexico Tech University (located in Socorro)  for $5 million. The majority of the Playas townsite is used by the university for a variety of purposes, most notably research and by the Department of Homeland Security as a counterterrorism training center. So the Playas Training Center has a highly variable, transient population that usually is less than 50, but can grow to several hundred depending on what type of training or research activities are taking place. It is a highly restricted area, much like a military base.
  Also, in the past decade, a tiny town called Road Forks, located 17 miles west of Lordsburg on Interstate 10, has become a ghost town. Road Forks never had more than 38 people, but it served as a significant travel stop for decades before "giving up the ghost" in the past few years. I will talk more about Road Forks later.
  As I stated above, the population loss that has taken place in the past few decades in Hidalgo County has accelerated in the past 10 years and it is evident everywhere in the county, not just in Lordsburg. Like I just stated, two of the county's towns have been completely abandoned just in the past decade while Lordsburg has experienced a steep drop in population, so I believe the county's population is approximately 4,000 or slightly less.

Venturing Into The Hinterlands

I guess I will start my writing about Hidalgo County, New Mexico in the northern part of the county. This is the only part of  this desolate county that has any farming, courtesy of the Gila River. This river is 636 miles long and rises in three different forks in western New Mexico.; East, West and Middle Forks. The East Fork begins its journey in Sierra County on the northern slope of Taylor Peak (elevation 8,288) in the Black Range, a few miles west of the Continental Divide. The West Fork begins in the Mogollon Mountains in the heart of the Gila Wilderness in southern Catron County. This was the first federally designated wilderness area in the world. The Middle Fork of the Gila River is considered to be the main channel and it is also the longest of the three forks.It rises on the west slope of the Continental Divide in the Mangas Mountains of central Catron County, five miles east of the tiny village of Aragon. The three forks converge near the Gila Cliff Dwellings near the boundary between Catron and Grant Counties and continue as a unified stream all the way across the width of Arizona before flowing into the Colorado River a few miles north of Yuma, Arizona, which is on the California border.
   The Gila River only goes through the northernmost reaches of Hidalgo County and waters a valley full of farms, an anomaly for Hidalgo County. The river flows past the town of Virden, population 141. At its peak in the 1930s, Virden had 375 people. It, along with the nearby towns of Duncan and Franklin, in Arizona, are the only towns in this long, narrow valley bisected by the Gila River. Virden is a veritable oasis in the desert. There are literally hundreds of trees in this tiny town. There is an elementary school in Virden, but the high school closed about half a century ago. The only operating business the last time I went through Virden, three years ago, was the post office.
  Virden is only 2 1/2 miles from the Arizona border, six miles from Duncan, Arizona and nine miles from Franklin, Arizona. Virden is connected to the rest of the world by State Highway 92, a lightly-traveled, sinuous route that follows the north side of the Gila River. This highway becomes a county-maintained road at the Arizona border, but it is the direct connection between Virden and Duncan. The principal highway through this area is U.S. Highway 70, about five miles south of Virden. In the 36 miles between Duncan, Arizona and Lordsburg, New Mexico, Highway 70 is wide, fast and almost completely straight. It has very few curves in this area and runs in a northwest to southeast direction and it runs through the desert overlooking  the valley of the Gila River.
  The residents of Virden and the surrounding area do most of their shopping in Safford and Thatcher, Arizona; twin towns an hour's drive to the west.