Old Hachita, New Mexico

History of Old Hachita

Old Hachita got its start as a silver mining camp in 1875 in the remote desert of southwest New Mexico. Within a few years it had grown into a proper town with saloons, a post office, and a school. At its peak the population climbed to over 2,000 people, a remarkable number for such a harsh and isolated location.

The town’s position along the Butterfield Overland Mail route gave it more significance than just mining. It served as a supply center for nearby ranches and mining camps and a stopover for cattle drives heading north to Kansas. For a brief period Old Hachita was a genuinely important place in the region.

The silver mines eventually played out and the people followed. By the 1920s the town was largely abandoned, left to the Chihuahuan Desert with little trace of the community that had once called it home. What remains today is scattered and degraded, which becomes clear the moment you arrive. It is one of the more forgotten ghost towns in the Southwest, and that is part of what makes it worth finding.

Know Before You Go

• Region: Southwest United States
• Location: Southeast New Mexico  
• Coordinates: 31.91806,-108.32028
• Costs: No Fees or Permits are Required
• Schedule: No closure, but daytime is suggested  
• Attraction Type: Abandoned Mine
• Additional Resources: Legends of America

My Trip Story

I met up with a good friend, Brandon, and his family for some exploring. We met close to Old Hauchita, and he led the way. Following the coordinates he had, we followed an old dirt road through a gate and into the ruins of the mine itself.  We parked our Jeeps and wandered around the area. Like many ghost towns and mines, we have explored the remnants of the long-gone inhabitants, left behind trash and tools barely hanging on to recognition despite the harsh desert conditions.  Many glass bottles, cans, and other metal parts lay around the now-barren desert. Several buildings and mine entrances still barely stand.  We kept our distance from the mine openings as there were no safety operations near them and, instead, were just open holes in the ground.

Palaces like this make you wonder about the type of lives these people had. Living in a harsh environment with everything around them trying to kill them all for fortune and fame. There is a second part of the area that we were going to go see, which was the old town itself. The road sadly was washed out enough that neither Brandon nor I felt comfortable crossing it in our Jeeps, and did not bring the proper equipment to make it passable.  He had information about a secondary road; however, the information he had seemed incomplete, and we could not piece it all together with the maps we had access to at the time. With a limited cellphone signal, we decided it was better to call it a day than to risk it, especially with it being a hot day and there was nothing out there if we were to have any issues.

We were not sure going into it what would be there. The photos we found were limited, and even the maps did not show much in the way of structures and or roads. Old Hachita is the most degraded abandoned mine we had visited. Overall, it was a fantastic day, and I enjoyed spending the day with good friends wandering around the desert.

If you enjoy exploring places like this, my visit to Swansea, Arizona is worth a read.