D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April
2009
Pinos Altos
Page: 2You can walk around the region's first courthouse, built around 1871. It served for only one term, although that one has been called "the gayest and loudest ever held in the Rocky Mountains," according to the Pinos Altos Internet site.
About a mile north of Pinos Altos, on the edge of the Gila Wilderness, you can visit a restored arrastra, or rock-lined ore-grinding pit. One of some 75 arrastras that the miners built in the Pinos Altos vicinity, it offers an insight into the hardship that prospectors would endure in their compulsive pursuit of gold.
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The arrastra pit, where the ore-grinding
process took place. |
Powered by a mule or a horse, "Large dragstones were pulled over a mixture of crushed ore and water," according to the US Forest Service marker at the arrastra site. Once a heavy mud formed, the operator added mercury (which, in concentration, can cause severe damage to the nervous system and kidneys) to the mixture. "The mercury adhered to gold and formed an 'amalgam' that settled to the floor of the arrastra pit. Amalgam was processed through a 'sluice' (washing system) to remove the mud. The clean mixture was heated in a covered vessel called a 'retort' until the mercury vaporized and only gold remained. The mercury gas was collected, cooled and condensed for reuse. Extracted gold was cast into ingots."
Near the arrastra, you will find the stone remnants of a small crude structure that served as the miners' home, and you can see the hand-dug "prospects" that yielded up the gold-bearing ore processed in the arrastra.
You can see the consequences of the hard life of the frontier in the cemetery just to the east of Pinos Altos, adjacent to the Catholic Church, built about 1888. You will find mere stone clusters that mark the remains of the utterly forgotten; tilted headstones that speak to the spiritual longings of the faithful; and inscriptions that memorialize the mourning for Mangas Coloradas' victims, worn and broken young men and women, US Army veterans and mere children — all drawn, in one way or another, to Pinos Altos in the quest for gold.
In addition to wandering around Pinos Altos, you can explore the Gila Wilderness, a 438,000-acre protected preserve nestled into the 2.7-million-acre Gila National Forest — a mountainous, heavily wooded region you would scarcely expect to find in the arid Southwest. You can, for example, hike some of the most undisturbed segments of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, one of our country's great pathways.
You can likely add to your lifetime bird checklist, especially since — as the Forest Service says — the birds of the region, with its "great ecological diversity," include "166 species known to breed in the Gila, 114 others that are more or less regular non-breeders, and 57 species considered to be casual. . . or accidental."
You can even still pan for gold beneath a canopy of tall pines, along Bear Creek and its tributaries. Start by checking in at the Log Cabin Curio Shop (adjacent to the Pinos Altos Historic Museum), where George Shafer will give you information and sell you a gold pan.
Just remember, if you choose to look for gold, you may be suddenly overcome by the suspicion that you are getting close to a strike. You may feel your heart start to race and your temperature begin to rise. You may be overcome by a compulsion to trade in your mate and children for a donkey. You may give up common sense and a good job to follow a hunch, just knowing that prospectors could not possibly have explored every streambed in the entire Gila Wilderness. You may become totally convinced that in an isolated wash in a far corner in one of America's last wild places, you will find a deposit of rock and sand loaded with gold. You may follow your dream.
You'll probably get us both in a lot of trouble, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Jay W. Sharp is a Las Cruces author who is a regular contributor to DesertUSA, an Internet magazine, and who is the author of Texas Unexplained.