Shakespeare Ghost Town and Grant County Chronicles

Various editions of Grant County newspapers give indications of the rapid exodus of people from Ralston City to, for the most part, Silver City. Many leading figures and businessmen had made their way to this town from Ralston when it became all too apparent that there was nothing there that would support a livelihood.

The fate of the Virginia Mining District was sealed. In reality it never did have any real prospects other than being the focus for the Pyramid Range scheme and the “diamond discovery” of 1870. Despite whatever efforts George D. Roberts had made to suppress any unfavorable reports, he had no control over independent assessments and commentaries, written by those who had no vested interests in the Virginia Mining District. Below are excerpts from some of those commentaries on the state of the District and Ralston City itself.

Sylvester Mowry, October, 1870

As well as Kobbé’s  report from June of 1870 (see Chapter 19, part 3) there were several others which passed unfavorable judgment on both the Virginia Mining District and Ralston City. For example, on October 31, 1870, the Daily Alta California published a lengthy report on “The Burro Silver Mines” which contradicted much of the information contained in the reports being issued by those associated with the New Mexico and Burro Consolidated Mining Companies. The Daily Alta report consisted of a letter to the editors written by Sylvester Mowry¹¹⁰, together with two reports from unidentified sources. We concentrate on Mowry’s letter itself and the first of the two supplementary reports, which relate directly to the properties held by Roberts, Harpending et al.

Mowry’s letter is dated Tucson, Arizona Territory, October 15, 1870. Here we reproduce the most pertinent sections.

• As stated in a previous letter, it was my intention to have visited the newly-discovered mines in New Mexico, and have reported to you my opinion on their value. On my arrival at Camp Bowie (fifty miles from the Burro mines), I found a number of people just returned from Ralston. Some of them were known to me to be entirely reliable. They advised me, as I had frequently seen the country in past years, where Ralston and these mines are located, not to take the trouble of going.
• No work had been done to give any idea of the value and depth of the silver or gold-bearing rock, the deepest shaft being eighteen feet.
• No work has been done to establish the size or value of the pay streak.
• The people at the mines are very poor. Many are leaving. A prominent merchant just from the Burro tells me that, in his judgment, ‘only the bats and coyotes will occupy the town of Ralston in six months.’
• Holders of locations have been hoping for large developments of the San Francisco Company in order to enable them to sell their claims.
• The assayer for the San Francisco Company at first made known his assays to everyone – now he refuses to disclose anything. Sanguine people say this is to enable the San Francisco people to buy claims low by giving out the idea that the results are so poor, as not to justify a poor man in holding on. People who are not sanguine say the assays are so bad the assayer is afraid to tell them
• One of the San Francisco Company … tells me that it will cost $300,000 to put up a forty-stamp mill at Ralston, or on the Gila, and he believes it would pay largely. So much of the rock is above ground that it can be mined for years at small cost.
• The same gentleman tells me that water in wells for milling purposes is abundant beyond question. I am by no means sure he is right, since as quite good judges believe firmly that there is no permanent water – the geological structure of the country forbidding it. What is obtained now is only surface and seepage, which will soon disappear.

Camp Bowie, September, 1870

The supplementary report enclosed with Mowry’s own letter is dated Camp Bowie, September 9^th; again we reproduce the most pertinent sections. Unlike Mowry, the author of this report had personally visited the Virginia Mining District.

• As to the extent then of these mines, or more properly ledges, for I suppose they are not mines yet, there need by no misgivings.
• Next as to the quality of the ore. I believe that more or less silver can be found in all of it [the author is referring to the “Valley” claim], at the same time I believe that to arrive at the amount of  silver in it, we would need to divide the reported assays by ten, and not improbably by one hundred. Those most interested in the success of Ralston City, report assays running from $20 to $8,000 per ton. Others not so deeply interested have found from $5 to $40 on average.
• Captain Hinds says he had assays made … and the average was about $6 per ton.
• Specimens said to have been taken from these ledges were sent to Messrs. Reynolds and Griggs of Mesilla, who forwarded them to the United States Assayer of the Philadelphia Mint, and from three of the four samples received, returns ranging from $6 to $36, and from the fourth said to have been taken from a small ledge near Leichtendorff’s [Leitendorf’s]Wells, a return of $1173 per ton.
• From a miner who has been on the ground since the first location of the claims on these ledges, and who returned to this place yesterday, I learned that nearly all at Ralston are becoming discouraged, and he prophecies that in three months the whole place will be deserted.
• The quantity of water obtained in wells is not more than sufficient for the wants of the small population of Ralston. There are no perennial streams of water in the immediate vicinity.
• No work, except of the most trivial nature, has been done on any part of locations made.
• Ralston City consists of a few houses of stone, adobe, and pine lumber.
• There is no work being done on any of the claims there now.

M.J.Ryan, January, 1872

In his letter to the London Times (January 6, 1872), M. J. Ryan not only confirms that Sampson was fully justified in his criticisms of the Pyramid Range company, but also comments on what would have been the “enormous expense attendant on hauling rails by wagons a distance of 900 miles for the construction of a tramway from the mines to the Gila.” Ryan closes his letter with the following description of Ralston City as he found it in late 1871:

 Although 80 houses were erected during the excitement, but one man, the postmaster, remains at Ralston. A true type of the American office-holder, he resolutely sticks to his post. The rest, notwithstanding the high temperature of the region, were ‘frozen out’, and retired to the more congenial region of Pinos Altos and Silver City.¹¹¹

Secretary of The Interior, 1872

The Secretary of the Interior’s Report for 1872 referred to above contains the following on the Virginia Mining District:

In the Ralston district, west of Silver City, operations are entirely suspended, no doubt mainly to the want of machinery for the proper working of its abundant rich ores, the miners there interested having hitherto failed to induce capitalists to invest their money in that promising field for its employment.¹¹²

In 1873 there are few mentions of Ralston City or the Virginia Mining District in the press, but among them is one in the Las Cruces Borderer of March 8, 1873, which says that William Grant, having great faith in the camp, was preparing to erect a furnace at Ralston. Grant himself reported that parties who had claims there were planning to carry out the annual work legally required to hold their claims, and that “the California Company” were due to return the following month. It was also noted that “nearly the whole camp is soon subject for relocation”, evidence that many of the claims there had not had the legally required annual work carried out on them, or had just simply been abandoned.

Mining Life, July, 1873

A Mining Life article in July of 1873, which described the resources of and prospects for Grant County, included a list of towns and settlements within the County. It gives the population of each, and Ralston merits the following entry:

Ralston, deserted mining camp, Americans 2.

By contrast, Silver City is described as being the County seat with a total population of 1,050, and Pinos Altos, the oldest settlement in the county, as having a population of 300.¹¹³

From Mining Life we glean the following information for the year 1874. Willison returned to Ralston in May, with hopes of recommencing work on his claims there. He expressed his hope that a team of miners would be at work there on his behalf by June 10. Captain J. H. Wemple “of Ralston” was in Silver City during the first week of June to purchase tools and provisions enough to continue with his operations in the Virginia Mining District.

Wemple is described as being the representative of “the San Diego company.” The “California company” was reported as having no representative at the mines at this time.

Grant County’s Mining Locations No. 1, (1871 – 1880) records that on the 10^th and 11^th of June, 1874, Mr. Wemple made 17 mining locations in the Virginia Mining District, some bearing his name alone as sole locator, and some joint claims with a variety of partners. Those partners include John Evensen, Frank McKane and John Fitzgerald.

The June 6^th edition of Mining Life informs us that at Silver City Levi D. Miller, a former inhabitant of Ralston, had been kept busy all week manufacturing drills and mining tools for Robert Willison.

In December of 1874, a convention was called for those with interests at the Virginia Mining District. The convention was held “at the residence of J. Evanston [Evensen] in Ralston on the 26^th day of December ’74.” It was at this convention that the Virginia Mining District was redefined as being:

Embraced within an area of twenty miles square the SW corner of Main and Broad streets of Ralston being the center thereof. The boundary lines of said Virginia Mining District running North and South, East and West.

Few names are given of those who were present at the convention, but the report states that George Warren was elected President, and Alonzo Bailey Secretary. Frank McKane was chosen to be District Recorder on a motion put forward by “Mr. Fitzgerald”; William Chamberlain’s name is also mentioned.¹¹⁴

Fitzgerald, November, 1875

The next reference of any note to the Virginia Mining District – although it is not mentioned by name – occurs in a letter dated St. Louis, November 13, 1875. It was written by E. Fitzgerald on behalf of Eaton, Dean and Co., Commission Merchants, and refers to the mining claims of the San Diego and Arizona Mining Company. The letter is addressed to George C. Spear, Probate Clerk, Pinos Altos, and asks if he can supply information on whether or not the Company’s claims have been jumped, and if so, which ones, where, and by whom, and whether the jumpers had complied with Territorial laws. Fitzgerald asks “what steps would be necessary for this company to re-establish its claims and also the name of some responsible party to act for us in these premises.”¹¹⁵ Nothing further was found relating to this matter. It is evident that the Eaton, Dean and Co. was unaware of the fact that by this time Silver City was the county seat and not Pinos Altos, and had been since 1871.

—–

So we see that as the Pyramid Range Silver Mountain Company scheme evaporated, so did Ralston City itself; after all, it too was but part of that scheme. In fact, the town as a de facto entity had faded away even before the memory of the scheme had.

That the settlement didn’t wither away and disappear completely in the 1870s was due to only one thing – it had become the location for a stage station on the southern overland route. This was its sole saving grace; a saving grace which would be the basis for its reincarnation as Shakespeare as the 1870s drew to a close. 

©2007-2024 Jim & Erica Parson

REFERENCES FOR THIS INSTALLMENT

¹¹⁰Annual Report Of The Secretary Of The Interior On The Operations Of The Department For The Year 1872. Washington: Government Printing Office (1872). Page 126.

Sylvester Mowry had been the owner of the valuable and successful “Patagonia Lead and Silver Mine” which was located near the present day Arizona/Sonora border. He bought the property in 1859, renaming it the “Mowry Mine”. During the Civil War the property was confiscated by General Carleton, and Mowry was arrested and imprisoned on charges that he had aided the Confederacy by selling lead from the mine to Confederate militias. He was soon released however due to a lack of evidence, but never regained ownership of his mine.

¹¹¹ Times. January 6, 1872.

¹¹²Annual Report Of The Secretary Of The Interior On The Operations Of The Department For The Year 1872. Washington: Government Printing Office (1872). Page 126.

¹¹³Mining Life. July 12, 1873. Mining Life was a Silver City publication.

¹¹⁴Mining Life. January 2, 1875.

¹¹⁵Drawer marked Letters – Ketcham, Probate Clerk. Deeds Recorded 1868-1876. (GCCO)