In May 1860, three California prospectors panning Bear Creek north of present-day Silver City turned over a nugget large enough to make every newspaper between St. Louis and San Francisco. Within six months, more than seven hundred miners were camped along the creek. Within a year, Pinos Altos was the largest English-speaking settlement in southwestern New Mexico Territory.
The town's bid for the territorial capital was serious. Pinos Altos had a working stamp mill, a hotel, two newspapers, an opera house, and — briefly — more registered voters than Mesilla. The bid failed for a familiar reason: the Apache wars made the road in and out of Pinos Altos unreliable. The capital eventually settled at Santa Fe, but Pinos Altos kept producing gold steadily through the 1880s.
What's left today is one of the most-intact mining-camp townscapes in New Mexico. The Hearst-funded log church (Eugenia Hearst, William Randolph's mother, paid to build it in 1898) still holds services. The Buckhorn Saloon, opened in 1860, still serves food. The Pinos Altos Opera House — yes, the same one — still hosts the occasional play. The cemetery on the hill above town is a quiet, dated record of what mining-camp life cost.
The drive in from Silver City is six miles of NM-15. Allow an hour even if you don't stop, because you will stop. Bring a camera and water; bring small bills if you want to leave a donation at the church.