Road Trip~White Oaks, NM

A few weeks ago my twinlings attended a homeschool camp in the Capitan Mountains in Southern, New Mexico. The drive takes about 3 hours from our house and I drove them down, dropped them off, and returned a week later.

Along the way, coming and going, I visited some interesting places, did some letterboxing, and had fun exploring. I’d love to share some of those places, through my photos, with all of you. I hope you enjoy them.

White Oaks is now a ghost town, but in the early years, it was a typical Western town. Rough, hardcore men and women flocked to the town to perform the nightly ritual of shooting up the evening sky. Gamblers, horse and cattle thieves, and gunslingers made up the daily excitement in White Oaks. During the years of 1881-1883, when Billy the Kid and his confreres made things exceedingly lively and the prostitutes were numerous, White Oaks was a dangerous place to be.

(The entire town was a little spooky, but these next two houses, although impressive, gave Ranchman John and I the willies.)

By 1885 White Oaks had assumed the semblance of a real town. Surviving the early difficulties of Billy the Kid and the failure of any significant strikes, the town settled down to the face the future. Streets and cross streets had been surveyed and laid out. Store buildings, made from stone as well as wood, were constructed along White Oaks Avenue. The early-day boomtown atmosphere, with its wild saloons, wide-open gambling, and guns and knives had virtually disappeared. The residents were all law-abiding, eager to make progress and willing to face the future. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, and businessmen of all types found their way to White Oaks after 1885.

A two-story brick school building was built on the north side of the valley. It had  four rooms and served grades from kindergarten through accredited college-entrance courses.

  Upon entrance into the school, the room on the left was for grades one through four, the room to the right for five through eight. Up the stairs, the room to the left was for nine through twelve and to the right the kindergarten, for it had a good heat source.

The view from the school was commanding, for one could see the entire town from the upstairs window. The school, because of the recent increase in revenue, due to the gold strikes, was just one of many new buildings built after 1885.

White Oaks was a boom town as a direct result of the gold and coal found in the surrounding mountains. The dramatic rise from a tent-city to a bustling, thriving, territorial New Mexican town of 2,500 almost overnight is a prime indication of man's attraction to gold. The fact that White Oaks was located in the middle of nowhere did not prevent hordes of prospectors, businessmen, and an occasional outlaw from making his way into the area that became the richest in New Mexico.

 

Cedarvale Cemetery is on the National Historic Register. The first graves were dug around 1880.

(Enter within the Pearly Gates)

The cemetery contains the graves of many important people, including the recently discovered grave of Deputy Sheriff James Bell, killed by Billy the Kid when he made his famous escape from the Lincoln County Courthouse.

And W. C. McDonald, the first New Mexico governor after statehood.

We found a letterbox inside the cemetery and then walked around and explored. I may be strange, but I enjoy visiting old cemeteries with lots of history and imaging what time was like back then and what kind of lives the people lived.

(Many of the gravestones revealed that cowboys and ranchers call Cedarvale Cemetery their final home)

(Adding their Ranch Brand on the gravestone, too)

(I loved the gravestones that included photographs and gave a face to those who were buried there)

(And gravestones of families that memorialized their favorite Cutting Horse, too)

(I found the graves with the old cowboy lariats particularly interesting and unique)

Elevated 6,500 feet above sea level, the White Oak’s small valley is surrounded by mountains  covered with  juniper, cedar, pinon, and, in the higher elevations, white pine.  A small stream, located two and a half miles from the actual town, gave the name to the community because of the abundance of white oak trees on its banks. This is the only surface water available in the area, making thirst a constant danger.

(I’m always enchanted by these antique iron fences)

(And this is another unique way to keep people from walking on your grave)

 

(Ranchman John was fascinated with the Civil War gravestones)

All told, the mines of White Oaks yielded more pure gold than any other in the United States. Still, this could not prevent the eventual "petering out" of the gold supply, which, coupled with the lack of a railroad spur, spelled doom for White Oaks. These facts drove the inhabitants from the town they had created and loved, but it never erased their memories.

(The main road towards White Oaks)

I hope you enjoyed the tour of White Oaks. Next up is Mountainair, NM.

From the Tower of,