Chloride, New Mexico

Caballo Lake was overcast and cloudy as we headed off for the almost ghost town of Chloride.   Once we exited the interstate we left the cloudy skies behind.  

We’ve visited Chloride before, it’s a lovely drive with endless skies and wide open views.

At Winston we followed the road further into the mountains before coming to halt in Chloride at the parking area by the store and museum.

Once a silver mining town with mostly tough, hard working, hard drinking miners, Chloride grew to have a population of about 3,000 people.  

The town had practically everything a person could need, saloons, stores, assay office, laundry, livery stables, hotel, blacksmiths, red light district, etc., etc.,  but no church!

Freight, mail and passengers came from Engle, about 50 miles away and ox powered freight wagons drove the trails to Magdalena, making at least one trip a year to St Louis to bring in heavy freight.

Even though Chloride survived the silver panic in 1893 the town gradually dwindled away and now it’s a quiet little village backing onto the Gila National Forest and the Black Range.

We saw these deer wandering down the street as we left.

While we were in Chloride we had gorgeous blue skies and sunshine,

but as we got closer to Caballo, the darker the skies became.

Have fun, we are!