Managing a Gold Rush: Mining on the Maxwell Land Grant, New Mexico 1867-1920
Richard D. Loosbrock
the Maxwell Land Grant Com pany of northern New Mexico ·r- . - and the Elizabethtown mining ·"""...... __ •-Trinidad Co lorado district, which lay on the com Maxwell Land 'Tf pany's land. This fact was crucial Grant 7 R on New Mexico I to the development of the mines, . ' 08.\VSOilt J as the management of the grant, • Elizabethtown' seeking to profit fi·om mining r Cimarro ,• leases and land sales, kept min I' I ing going through promotional J:._ efforts and their own endeavors -§ ::o \~ ;:= long after problems of limited
Cimarron. be a cyranr ac times, bur was generally a benevolent MaxweU, a former scout and friend of Klr Car landlord to the primarily Hispanic settlers. T he dls son, owned a vast estate in northern New Mexico, covery of gold on his ranch brought new opponuni~ the boundaries of which were not clearly defined.3 ties for wealth, bur it also complicated administration He had married Luz Beaubien, daughter of Charles of his property and shattered the relative peace and Beaubien, who was a prominent businessmen in quier he enjoyed on the Cimarron. Taos.~ ln 1841 Beaubien and a partner, Guadalupe When gold was discovered in rhe Moreno Valley, Miranda, submitted a petition for a large gram of Maxwell paid little attention to events on the western land on the eastern edge of rhe Sangre de Chrisco slope of Baldy Mountain. During the first days of mountains. It was quicldy approved, as the Mexican mining in 1867, Maxwell was passive, possibly be government was trying to promote setclement on the cause be was uncertain whether his tide covered the nonhern frontier to fend off American commercial MorellO Valley. Max.'WeU did assert his ownership on and territorial encroachment, In 1843 Beaubien and Baldy's eastern slope, aw::~y from Elizabethtown, and Miranda took possession of the grant. The bounda he was the principle shareholder in the Aoz.tec mine, 1 ries were vaguely defined, a fact which would create the richest mine on the mountaln. ; But the changes endless controversy in the following half-certrUJy. resulting from the gold rush forced him to reevaluate Miranda played almost no part in rhe grant's de his various enterpdses, and he oon realized that he velopment, and by 1850 Beaubien had turned to could no longer control the activities on his property. Maxwell to manage the land. MaxweU bought By 1869 he began marketing his huge estate. Al Miranda's share, and upon Beaubien's death in 1864 though he had decided ro sell the tract, questions re bought the shares of Beaubien's other children. mained concerning the actual size and even the legal Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Ma:xwdl devel icy of the grant. Maxwell may have known this and oped his holdings and builr a substantial enterprise. decided to sell quickly for a handsome profit, rhus His palatial dwelling on the soud1 bank of the Ci avoiding a lengthy struggle in which he could lose marron River became a regional landmark.5 By 1866, most of hjs property/ In May, 1869, Ma>."Well Ma>.."Well firmly controlled the grant, upon which he granred an option to buy the grant to a trio of Colo had bu.ilt an empire based primarLly on agriculture. radans. The mining properties probably attracted rhe Maxwell ruled his estate like a feudal lord. He could group, since they were all prominent mining men,
Elizabethtown, New Mexico, circa 1900. Courrcsy Secou Museum and Library, Cimarron, New Mexico. Mt111flgi11g 11 Cold Rush: Jvlini11g on the Mnxwell Lr111d Cm11t, New Mexico 1867-1920 3
among them jerome Chaffee. ] n effect, Chaffee and leagues of land for colonization grams, bur those seU his associates, George M. Chilcott and Charles F. ing the Maxwell Grant in 1870 contended that the Holly, acted as salesman working on consignment for tract encompassed some 450 leagues. Many feel the Maxwell. ~ Santa Fe Ring, the powerful group ofTerritorial law They soon found willing buyers in an English yers and politicians, used its influence to have the syndicate." Since territorial laws prohibited foreign original grant parlayed into a much larger uact. 1 ~ nationals from holding property, three New Mexi Eventually, the English company received tide to cans were chosen to front for the English buyers. some 1.7 million acres, that extended into southern They included William Pyle, the T errirorial Gover Colorado. nor, and John Watts, the Chief Jusrjce of the State When the Ma>.."Well Company assumed ownership Supreme Court. 111 Under this arrangement, the Max in 1870, it found a sizable population already en well Land Grant and Railway Company assumed trenched on the property. Maxwell made arrange control of the propercy. ments with some of these, bm many, induding most The rrans~r of ride came as mining in the Mo of rhe miners, tool< up residence as though it were reno Valley declined sharply. The rich, accessible de the public domain. The company chen tried to col posits had disappeared, water supply problems con lect tents from the ''squatters,'' or, if they refused, t tinued to hinder development, and poor returns fwm evict them. Some have compared the conflict to the the lode prospects meant a steep drop in gold pro American Revolution.13 After a long period of ne duction. rn the first few years, the disrrict averaged glect, d1e settlers, lilce the American colonists, re well over $250,000 per year. In 1871 the district sented the attempts of the Maxwell Company to produced $210,000, but in 1872 only $100,000. regulate their activities. Furthermore, ljmired transportation complicated the The new company planned to profit from its arrival of the heavy equipmenr needed to exploit the holdings in several ways, including land sales and the lodes, In 1870, Colfax Councy accounted for 60 per collection of small duties from the miners, farmers, cent of New Mexico's gold production, but by 1872 ranchers, and loggers opetating on the land. The that figure dropped to only 20 percent. 11 The new stance of the new Ma.\.'Well Company probably drove ownership changed the entire region as the company many minets from the area, or at least contributed to set our co develop the resources of the gram, which their decisions to leave. Afrer the new company rook also induded coal deposits, and timber, ranch, and over in the spring 1870, the owners set about assert furm lands. The new management began its tenure ing their right to collect rents from the residents of by asserting its claims to all of the property in the the grant, none of whom had titles ro the lands district, sparking a conflict with rhe miners and which they farmed or mined. Attempts to collect farmers alt·eady settled there. The Baldy district be rents on these properties met with much resistance, came embroiled in the turbulent affairs of the new and soon the company delivered eviction notices to Maxwell Land Grant and Railway Company. As the the uncooperative parries. This was the first salvo in Ma>rwell Company began to asserr control over the a decade of violence and turmoil in Colfax County. lands of Colfax County, many miners entered the The company's assertions produced an explosive network of resistance with other settlers on the grant. reaction in Elizabethtown. The residents charged The details surrounding rhe conflict that arose that the new company might be "a Wall Street between the settlers and the new owners of the land speculative swindle, akin to rhose thar have plagued are complex and sometimes murky. The key issue Colorado. '' 14 lu early September, 1870, the miners was essentially the validity of the Maxwell, or Beau met at "Etown/' as it was informally called, discussed bien and Miranda, grant, and it was tied to the much the matter, and concluded that the federal govern larger question of land grants in New Mexico. Under meat should survey and patent the grant. The com rbe Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the U.S. agreed to pany sent notices ro all miners ordering them to re honor the grants as a condition of the annexation of porc their daims to the company agent by September New Mexico, But how much larrd did Beaubien and 10. On October 27 a riot broke out in the commu Miranda receive? Mexican law al lowed only elever1 nity when angry miners set fire to the company sup- 4 1999 Mining HistOJy joumnl
porters' homes. A detachment of oldiers from Ci the major deposits worked out, :wd rbe Maxwell marron hastened ro E-rown to resrore order. Company having driven most of the miners away. Peace around Baldy proved elusive, however, as Bur having exerted conrrol over their holdings, tbe rrouble again erupted the following spring. In Janu English owners of the company softened their policy ary, 1871 , a group of miners agreed to resist any at towards the remaining miners. The company's man tempts by the company to collect royalties from the agers were comem to follow a policy of benign ne miners' laims. That April, the Maxwell Company glect now that control of the disrrict was secured. sent employees to Ure Creek on rhe eastern slope tO The few miners remaining kept the district alive dur begin working the placers, but they met with armed ing the 1880s. awaiting another bonanza. On both resistance from the miners, who then held the com sides of the mountain, a few key players stayed on, pany men hostage. With this act, the company called making peace wirh the company, consolidating hold for state militiamen. ln the meantime, New Mexico ings, and taking control of rhe Jimited water supply. Governor Pile jumped on a stage and traveled ro the A ex:ample of just such an operator was Matthew scene.'~ The governor staved off a violent confronta Lynch, an early prospecror in the region and discov tion by issuing a proclamation that ordered the min erer of the Aztec strike. JM Lynch used his share of the ers to disband their resistance organizadon and ro Aztec profits to invest in placer claims amund Eliza submit their claims to the courts. Pile also sent bethtown, which he bought at low prices when the troops from Fort Union ro be stationed in the area to district waned in the early 1870s. He was chen able keep rhe peace, and the soldiers were directed by the to monopolize rhe water supply as the number of governor nor to take sides in rhe issue. Even though outfits demanding warer declined."' Lynch's opera the territorial government remained neutral, many in tions were successful enough to attract the attention the territory seemed reluctant to irritate the MaxwelJ of the Maxwell Company, then under the direction Company. The Santa Fe Daily New Mf.'xican con of Washingtol1, D.C., speculator Frank Sherwin, demned the miners' organization and argued that the Sherwin rook advantage of the company's financial law should uphold the company's ownership. The and legal troubles in the mid-1870s ro buy large ediroriaJ also noted that New Mexico should treat blodcs of stock and maneuver himself into the com the Maxwell Company well because it invested some pany's presidency. The Lynch outfit appeared to be a $10,000 monthly in the territorial economy.H· The sure winner, so Sherwin approached Lynch with an conflict created an environment that was less than offer to purchase his entcrprise.zo conducive to a healthy mining industry. As was com Sherwin's offer was an example of the Maxwell mon throughout the West, government and local Company's low-risk approach toward its mining boosters were quick to mollifY the major capitalists. fields. The company was very reluctant to invest its From these early disputes grew a conflict whid1 own capital in mining. Instead, it preferred to strike dominated the area for more than a decade. The deals when a profit seemed likely. This deal was ''war" climaxed in 1875 with the murder of Reverend never consummated, however, due to an unforeseen F. J. Tolby as he rode from Elizabethtown to Cimar act of nature. Lynch died when a tree fell on him as ron. Tolby was a Methodist minister and an outspo he prepared the ditch for the 1880 mining season, ken critic of the company. He used his pulpit to de Lynch's three brothers took over the mining, and op nounce the Maxwell Company, and often argued erations continued throughout rhe 1880s. Sherwin that the grant belonged to the Ute and Jicarilla resigned in 1885, and the new management did nor Apache Indians. His murder touched off a series of pursue the Lynch deal. company versus seeder killings. Later, an 1887 U.S. Throughout the 1880s the district limped along, Supreme Court decision affirmed the Maxwell Com and the gold fields became marginaJ ro the Maxwell pany's tide to the grant. Resistance eventually crum Company' operations. The gram's operators instead bled. Miners and seeders either Jeft the area or came concentrated on rhe rich coal fields around Raton, ro terms with the company to buy or lease their and che vast range and timber lands throughout the property. 17 grant. Bur in the early 1890s gold mining revived By the mid- 1870s Elizabethtown was busr. with when the mines around Baldy again flourished. A Mnwtging 11 Gold Rmb: Mining 011 tl1e Ma.-.:w(il Lrmd Gntnt, New M(xico /867-1920 5
variety of circumstances converged berween 1892 pany decide to enter rhe mining business itself. Oc and 1894 to stimulate this new activity. The nation casionally, it also sold these extensions to generate plunged into the severe depression of the 1890s, and revenue. l~ the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purcbase Act redi FJank Springer then worked with rhe Santa Fe
rected mining acrivides in rhe west towards goldY Railroad1 eager to attract freight and passengers to In this climate the Max'We.IJ Company mounted a the town of Springer, to promote the district in east new campaign to attract developers to the grant, and ern markets, The milroad published and distributed the gold fields around Baldy featured prominently in d1e new regulations along with a promotional pam the new campaign. In 1892 rhe Maxwell Company pblet.lh The Maxwell Company subsidized a stage reorganized, placing the capable local attorney Frank line from Springer to Elizabethtown to facilitate new Springer in the presidency. 22 This resttucturing set business, and underwrote a project to improve che the company on its most fruitful period of develop road co Baldy TownY ment. Springer assumed control at a difficult time, as These measures were apparently effective. New the company was short of cash. Economizing meas faces appeared in the area, ready co pour capital into ures were taken in all deparrments to cut costs, and the district. From 1893 until 1905, more money was new promotions of company resources begun.13 invested in Baldy mining than in any period in its Springer also looked to rhe Baldy area for addi history. Just as the Maxwell Company officials tional income. Since the gold disu·icr bad never pro hoped, the promotional campaign began attracting vided signi6ca11t income for the company, he felt some of the Colorado mining establishment. Among that any ideas to attract miners to the aJea should be the newcomers was Jerome Wheeler, a Colorado pursued. Springer, seeking to attract Colorado capi capitalist and the figure most responsible for the suc tal, made a generous agreement with a pail· of Den cess of the silver mining camp of Aspen, Colorado. ver mining invesrors, W. J. Conner and Captain T. After he arrived there in 1883, Wheder developed C. Sewell. He ofFered them a large chunk of the the mining operations so successfully that Aspen Montezuma vein, one of the richest on Baldy's east soon out-produced its more famous neighbor, Lead ern slope, for a nominal fee and a vaciable percentage ville. By the time the silver market collapsed a few of the profits. Springer hoped word of the strike years later, Wheeler was well established in Colo would spread throughout the Colorado mining in rado. 2~ He was searching for undeveloped gold mines dustry as wealthy silver mine owners sought new in when Baldy drew his attention. Jn rhe spring 1894, vestments in gold.14 he bought interests in a number of claims along both Springer also changed company's mining regula Ute and PoniJ creeks on the eastern slopes of Baldy. tions in order to attract smaller operators and pros These included the French Henry Mine, one of the pectors to assist the development amund Eliza oldest mines on the mountain. Wheefe.r announced bethtown. To chis end, claim sizes were extended. he planned to invest $100,000 in developing his new Under the old regulations, set in 1873, claims were holdings, although he never approached that figure. limited to J ,000 feet in length and 100 feet in width. Still, as a leading Colorado bonanza Icing, his pres In 1892~ this was extended to I ,500 by 600 feet. ence lent credibili ty to the new boom on Baldy. Once a claim was marked and a ten-foot shaft sunk, This boom of the 1890s, largely manufuctured by the miner needed only ro pay a $12 fee at the com the Maxwell Company, la.sred into 1900. Other out pany office in Racon before raking fuU possession. fits tried their hands at mining the areal including The company required the miners to continue work efforts to dredge rhe Moreno Valley. But sparse de ing their claims before they could buy them outright. posits doomed nearly all of these efforts, The shadow A tWenty-foot shaft or tunnel had to be completed of decline which hung over Baldy darkened even and an application for a company survey filed within more when a great fire struck Elizabethtown in the one year. The company reserved the right to claim fall of 1903. The fire destroyed much of the commu extensions at each end of the claim tO avoid losing nity on the afternoon of September u~ Eliza control over vast srrerches of the district or, more im bethtown was emptied literally overnight for the sec portantly, to share in any rich veins should tlu:- com- ond rime in its hisrory. Many of the miners drifted to 6 1999 Mining Histo1y joumnl
the Red River and Twining districts in Taos Counry pany worked the Aztec at intervals, and a few miners to the north and west of the Moreno Valley, while continued ro work claims leased from rhe company. others found employment as miners in the burgeon The Dutch owners of rbe MaxweU Company began ing coal fields around Raron, where Phelps Dodge to dJvest themselves of the burden of running a dis was developing the company rowo of Dawson. rant enterprise by selling large sections of th e old The demographic decline was permanent, but the grant. The last piece of company land (our of the drop in production was not. No longer was the Max original 1. 7 million acres) was 10,000 acres of the well Company able ro attract sizable capiral to Baldy old Baldy district which included rhe Aztec Mine. Mountain, but the area was in for one last period of The company faded into oblivion in 1964 when that spectacular production, this time by the iHitiative of parcel was bought by timber executive Norton Clapp the coro.pany itself In 1911, the Maxwell Company and donated to the National Council of the Boy reopened the Aztec Mine which had been through Scouts of America for incorporation into the adjacent numerous leases and tenants. Company officials be Philmont Scout Ranch..U The Aztec produced over lieved there were still some profits to be squeezed out $4,000,000 during its run, and today the Aztec re of the mine which had made a smaU fortune for mains alive with activity as Philmont campers tour Lucien Maxwell and several others nearly fifty years one of the mine's old tunnds. 3~ before. The company hired ] .T. Sparks to manage a systematic reworking of the mine. After two years of Conclusion mixed results the company fired Sparks and hired In the annals of western mining history Eliza one of his engineers, Ernest Deshayes. bethtown is bur a minor chapter, another entry on In 1914, Deshayes decided to drill new tunnels the list of districts that never quite "made it." It pos between older drifts. His workers mud< a rich vein, sessed only limited deposits, and no amount of spin setting rhe mine off on the most successful run in its doctoring or promorion by the company could dis history. lt netted nearly $1.4 million between 1915 guise rhar fact. The circumstances surrounding Eliza and 1918.341 Colfax Counry gold production soared bethtown are unique, but this study does remind re from only $15,000 in 1913 to $350,000 in 1915, an searchers to pay attendon to land ownership and pro average it maintained until 1918. Tbe actual profit motion in other disrricrs. Had Baldy Mountain been may have been much higher given the possibility of in the public domain, mining there may have lasted high grading, or stealing of chunks of rich ore by the a far shorter time. As ir were, th.e district did survive miners. Deshayes estimated the loss to high grading to irs fiftieth birthday, while were it not for the ef to be $300,000. The company alerted Wells Fargo, forts of the Maxwell Company it might never have which carried its ore, to warch for any small pieces of reached its tenth. ore being sent to the smelter by anyone around Baldy While exceptional in its land ownership patterns, Town.31 however, Elizabethtown was typical in leading eco Because of the strong showing of the Aztec in the nomic development in the surrounding area. It was years prior to World War 1, the mine continued to rhe first salvo in the rush to New Mexico for precious operate after the U.S. entered the European confUct. minerals. The mining around Elizabethtown at The company faced higher taxes, inflated prices~ and tracted the Maxwell Company, who then did much shortages of materials that were diverted for wartime to develop Colfax County. It also built the infra use. Tbe spectacular run ended as the mine shut structure, the roads and communication links which down when the influenza epidemic swept through larer evolved into a thriving rourist industry around the dJstrict in 1918, and no more lucrative ores were the Moreno Valley and Red River areas. As a mar found. The postwar depression fi·om 1919 to 1921 ginal mining distri.ct it was more closely tied co the deprived the company of capital, as many of irs ten local economy, relying on the surrounding area to ants were not able to make payme11ts, and the com supply the labor for the small mining outfits. It had a pany abandoned the operation in 1920.3l unique hisr01y, but its marginality places jt alongside ln the Anal analysis, 1920 marks the end of min dozens of other nearly forgotten districts that shaped ing around Baldy Mountain1 even though rhe com- the subregions of the West. Mrtnngiug 11 Gold Rush: Mi11ing on the Mnxwc/1 Lnnd Gm11t, New Mexico 1867-15120 7
Notes
1. Darlis A. Milb, "Carleton's California Column: A Chap and t/Jf Mnxwrll Lm1d Grnllf Conflict (Tucson: Univ. of ter in New Mexico's Mining H.istory," New lvle:o:i~o His Ari'l.ona Press, 1979). rorical Rr11iew 53 O;muary 1978), 19. 18. Santa Fe: W'eekly Nl'tu Mexicnn, Seprembc:r 13, 1870. 2. For accounts of the early rush around Elizabethtown see 19. Bliwbctbtown Netv Mexicnn Minet> Grenl Souul'lllr of t/Jt• Lawrence R. Murphy Philmont: A HlstoiJ' ofNrw Mexico's EliZttbetbtiJwll Gold nnd Copprt Miniug Districr Cill!f/1'1'011 Coll!ltiJ (Albuquerque: University of New Mex (Elizaberhrown: The Elizabethtown New Mexict111 Mint'l 'o ico Press, 1972) or Jim Berry Pearson, "A New Mexico 1902), p. 2; Van Line Manuscript, Maxwell Land Granr Gold S10ry: T he Eliubethrown-Rc:d River Area," (Ph.D. Company Records~ 1871-1966, Special Collecdons De Disserration, Unlv. ofTcxas, 1955). parnm:nr, University of New Mexico General Libraries, 3. T he ddlnirive work on Maxwell is Lawrence R. M urphy 29. Hereafter refered m as rhe Maxwell Collection. Lucie11 Bo111tpnrte Maxwell: Nnpoll'f/11 of the Sw!llnllcst 20. Ibid, 29. (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1983). 21. M.P. Pels, a liaison for rhe Durch shareholders of rhe 4. For backgrow1d on Beaubien, sec John W. Grasham, Company, reporred in 1892 rhat mine owners from Credc, ''Clmrles H. Beaubien," (M.A. T hesis, New Mexico Srarc Colorado, were showing srrong lmerest in the Eliza Unlv., 1983). bethtown area. Repotr of M.P. Pds, Maxwc:.ll Collection, 5. This is not the .same C im;uron River of Oklahoma., bur April 16, 1892. ratht!r a local tributary of the Canadian River. 22. Springer represented the company in its Supreme Court 6. Rossiler Raymond, Stnristics of Mint!s flllll Mining in tbl' case in t.he 1880s, the ca.se which secured rhe generous title Stnter nne! 7/!rritorit!s 1\rm of tbe Rflcky Mountains, for rhe M;ucwdJ Company. See Pearson, Jllftt.'