A History Lesson -- The Gila Cliff Dwellers

February 7th.

We arrived in Silver City, NM yesterday, got settled and went to the historic downtown district. Billy the Kid was raised here. His mother ran a laundry catering mostly to houses of prostitution, of which there were many. His mother is buried here in the local cemetery. The town  population is around 12,000 with everything leaning towards arts and crafts. Of course, I found a quilt store and a yarn shop! Close by the town is  the Santa Rita open pit copper mine. It is the oldest continually operated copper mine in the U.S. and one of the largest pit operations. It reminded us of Butte, MT! Silver City is also the home to Western New Mexico University.

Today we drove 43 miles each way to the Gila Cliff Dwellings Monument in the Gila River Valley. The road was very curvy and we climbed over the Continental Divide, altitude 7,080. It took us two hours to drive to it and almost as long to come back. The Cliff Dwellings are something you don't want to miss if you come this direction!. We had to walk about 1/2 mile UP and 1/2 mile back but it was worth it. If I can walk it, anyone can! We carefully walked,  climbed ladders and crawled along the cliffs through the rooms of the Mogollon people where they lived in the late 1200's.

Much of the following information I have taken from a brochure from the National Park Service. The people who built the cliff dwellings were part of the Mogollon culture.They combined hunting and gathering with farming and built pit houses or surface pueblos in the mountainous areas of Arizona and New Mexico. The Mogollon found abundant game and fertile soil in the Gila River valley for both native vegetation and their crops of corn, beans, and squash. They built inside the caves of Cliff Dweller Canyon with rock, mortar, and timbers from trees cut between 1276 and 1287. But by 1300 the Gila Cliff Dwellers had moved on.

Approximately 40 rooms were built inside several natural caves. Artifacts and architectural elements show that these ancient cultures traded not only materials but also ideas. They left behind macaw feather from Central America, and they built T-shaped doorways also used by other cultural groups. With culivated crops like corn came a more sedentary life. In time, the area's natural resources, already affected by drought, no longer sustained the Mogollon and they moved on. The visitor center has many artifacts and pottery from the caves, and artifacts left behind by the Apaches.

After the Mogollon left, no one appears to have lived here for over 100 years. Apaches migrated into the area of the upper Gila River about 1500. The legendary leader, Geronimo, was born near the Gila River headwaters in the early 1820's, as Mexico challenged Apache control of the area. Thirty years later, with the area under U.S. control, army posts were built to protect new Anglo settlers as area mining towns grew and ranching was established throughout the valley.

By 1870 the government began relocating the Apaches into reseravations. But not until 1886 were the last Be-don-ko-he -- as Geronimo's people were known -- led by Geronimo himself, ultimately were forced from their ancestral lands.

Tomorrow we are leaving for El Paso. Saturday we will head up north to Carlsbad Caverns.

Buster walked through the cemetery this afternoon, looking for Billy the Kid's mother's grave but did not find it. Maybe someone dug her up????? That's all the info I have for today! Susan