The rock-ribbed hills surrounding Cerrillos, New Mexico, are honeycombed with mineshafts and it is these mines that have shaped the hiStory of the town and of the district over which it presides.
These offer silent testimony to the once prosperous past of the Cerrillos mining district and are an appeal for all students of history..
Scattered over the hills and in the valleys everywhere are skeletal remains of mining activity: deserted buildings, black and foreboding entrances to shafts, broken tools and equipment, fallen timbers from the windlasses, gallows and hoist houses, tailing dumps and slag heaps.
And when the boom passed and the mines closed, that life ebbed away.
Mining gave life to Cerrillos and to neighboring towns such as Bonanza City, Carbonateville, Waldo and Madrid.
The Pueblo Indians for untold ages took out turquoise; the Spaniards in their turn found gold, silver and lead; and finally, the Anglo-Americans exploited all of these in addition to copper, zinc and coal.
The rock-ribbed hills surrounding Cerrillos, New Mexico, are honeycombed with mineshafts and it is these mines that have shaped the hiStory of the town and of the district over which it presides
