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Elizabethtown

Elizabethtown had it's first boom when a man looked down, picked up a rock from a stream and noticed a metallic sheen. He then shouted the word that would change everything - Copper! Granted, a copper rush is understandably slower and less frantic than a gold rush - but still they came, they dug, they smelted. They may not have tipped the waitresses with copper nuggets or wore copper-capped teeth, but like Gertrude Stein never said: a boom is a boom is a boom.

By the end of July, 1868 there were about 400 people living in Elizabethtown. A sawmill and several other stores followed Moore's, as did the inevitable saloons and gambling houses. Like most Old West towns, dancing, dining and drinking were popular, as well as a burgeoning red-light district, comprised of several cabins. Other women of the "profession" worked their trade in second floor rooms connected to the saloons where dumb waiters carried drinks to their guests.

Lucien Maxwell envied the quick success of Elizabethtown, and not wanting to be outdone, he began to plan another town site just six miles away. Partnering with several business associates, including Territorial Governor R.B. Mitchell, they laid out the new town site and named it after Maxwell's eldest daughter, Virginia. But Virginia City was too far from the "action" and never really got off the ground.

The mines attracted many new residents including settlers from Texas who brought herds of cattle and made livestock raising another principal industry in the County. Elizabethtown kept growing and the first crude structures were replaced by 5 well-built stores, a drug store, 7 saloons, 3 dancehalls, 2 hotels, a brewery, and a flour depot. The saloons boasted dance floors, gaming tables, and bars that were 100-200 feet long.

After the copper boom fizzled (about 1875) the copper barons moved away to invest in miniature railroads and raise thoroughbred goats outside of Branson, Missouri. Then in 1890 someone discovered gold that the copper miners had somehow overlooked. This time the boom was more traditional and a lot more frantic. People did wear gold teeth, tip their waitresses with nuggets and the homicide rate increased accordingly. An estimated $5 million in gold was taken out of the area in a single 12 month period - never to return. The population of the town was up to 3,000 at one point.

Elizabethtown naturally had its bad actors. Gunman Clay Allison - (more commonly associated with Texas) hung out here as well as "Black Jack" Ketchum. Clay was eventually buried in downtown Pecos, Texas behind the chamber of commerce - a fact that would be a bad joke if it wasn't true. He was a bad-tempered man and when he somehow managed to run over his own head in a one-wagon accident, there wasn't a wet eye in the house.

One of the more colorful businessmen of Elizabethtown was hosteler Charles Kenedy. Kenedy was experimenting with an early prototype of the "Roach Motel." He had the part about "checking in - but not checking out" down pat - but his downfall was that he was experimenting on humans. He went too far one day - by beating his son (or step-son) to death and his wife blew the whistle. Body parts that Charlie was slow in disposing of were found under the hotel. Angry townsfolk lynched him and dragged his body to the extent where he (it) was decapitated. If that wasn't bad enough - he also lost his good standing with the local Better Business Bureau.

Elizabethtown suffered a fire around 1903 and the hotel was a casualty. For people with more than a passing interest in ghost towns, a local museum has a good photographic record of the community. Elizabeth Moore lived to see her town become a ghost.

Steins

Once a thriving railroad station town named after Captain Enoch Stein, U.S. Army officer (sometimes spelled Steen) who was the first Anglo witness to sign a treaty with the Mimbres Apaches including Delgadito and Victorio. At the town's peak, between 1905 to 1945 Steins supported 1300 residents.

In 1857 the Birch stage line rumbled through Steins, and when James Birch was drowned in a shipwreck off the New England coast, his stagecoach company line was replaced in 1858 by the Butterfield Overland Stage Company.

Waterman L. Owsby, a reporter for the New York Herald was the first "through" passenger, thus tales of the Wild West were begun. In April of 1861, five men traveling west by stagecoach to Tucson were attacked by Cochise and his band while approaching Stein's Peak. Two white men were killed in the first fire. The others, including John J. Giddings of San Antonio, traffic manager of the Butterfield Texas division, and one other passenger survived long enough to face a terrible fate, hung upside down and burned alive. The bodies were found and buried by passing freighters. Giddings daughter visited the grave in 1925, erecting a headstone in her father's memory. Congress ordered the Butterfield road closed in 1861 due to the onset of Civil War.

In early 1880s Southern Pacific built track through Steins Pass and the town was established as work station for the railroad. Dwellings were made of rough-cut lumber, adobe, and salvaged railroad ties. Water hauled from Doubtful Canyon sold for a dollar a barrel. Numerous businesses included three saloons, two bordellos, a boarding house, and a general store stood at the center of the community.

Later, during the 1880s Apaches once again figured into Steins history when the Army set up a heliograph station on Steins Peak signaling information regarding the movements of Geronimo. With the surrender of Geronimo in 1886 citizens of the Territory breathed a sigh of relief, but three years later heliograph stations began blinking messages once again to the Army hard on the trail of Apache Kid. Later, gangs of horse thieves and express robbers including Black Jack Ketchum terrorized the little village.

Early in December 1897, the U.S. marshals of New Mexico and Arizona territories heard that a train would be held up at Stein's Pass within the next 10 days. The pass overlooked the territorial boundary and was within easy riding distance of "Tex Canyon."

Shortly after 6 p.m. on Thursday, December 9, 1897, Dave Atkins and a man known locally as Edward H. Cullen held up the post office in the nearby village of Stein's. Their take was $9. They and Sam then grabbed the station agent, Charles E. St. John, and ransacked the premises of express and railroad company funds, inflating their haul by a further $2.20. Tom relieved the telegraph operator of his Winchester .44. He and Carver then took the horses two miles down the line and built a bonfire on each side of the track.

Toward 9 p.m. the westbound flyer, No. 20, came toiling up the grade to Stein's station. The gang stopped it by ordering St. John to show a red light, seized control of the engine and told engineer Thomas W. North to pull ahead as far as the two bonfires.

The train was halted and the outlaws approached the express car. A terrific battle then ensued between the bandits and the three men in the car-messenger Charles Jennings and two guards. Four of the gang were wounded and the fifth, Cullen, killed when he picked the wrong moment to raise his head. That ended the affray. Leaving Cullen where he lay, the band slunk back to Texas Canyon to patch themselves up and exchange recriminations. Tom blamed Atkins; he had got drunk, said Tom, and spilled word of their plans into too many and too receptive ears.

Six men were arrested in or near Texas Canyon in connection with the Stein's Pass case. Three finally were cleared, while the other three-Leonard Alverson, Walter Hovey, alias Hoffman, and William Warderman, alias Fatty Ryan-were jointly indicted by a federal grand jury and eventually convicted of post office robbery. They were all thieves and smugglers, but none had participated in the holdup of the post office, station or train.

After World War II Southern Pacific switched from steam to diesel, the work station was closed down and the town began to die. Steins passed into the recesses of history when its railroad station closed. These days, the empty bordello still displays a sign asking for applications.

The Personal Narrative of James O Pattie: The True Wild West of New Mexico and California In 1824 James O. Pattie, then in his early twenties, left Kentucky with his father and headed west. This is the story of several adventures he experienced during his six-year trip.

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