Enter your e-mail address for things to do, restaurants to try and much more! One of the biggest challenges for early miners was the lack of water. No commercial outfits dig for gold in New Mexico today; oil and gas, copper, and potash dominate the state’s mining … When it was in operation, it produced coal. While we continue to feature destinations that make our state wonderful, please take proper precautions or add them to your bucket list to see at a later date. But you can still view it from the road. This map depicts current and abandoned mines from the USGS Mineral Resource Data system and the watersheds they fall within. Just south of Tuerto, a new town called Golden was being formed, which soon absorbed both El Real de San Francisco and Placer del Tuerto. Some of the most popular New Mexico gold mines are as follows: Please understand that many areas in New Mexico are private lands; some of them are for the military, and others are Indian Reservations. 1744 - The mine, Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Zaragoza, was registered by Don Magrinan of Santa Fe. These treasures are outlaw caches, abandoned and lost mines, and Spanish treasures. Over the past several hundred years, New Mexico has produced good amounts of gold. Map and Download GPS Waypoints for 3689 Mines in New Mexico Click here to download GPS waypoints (POIs) for all of the mines in New Mexico in GPX format . https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/new-mexico/abandoned-mines-nm New Mexico; Metal Detectors. The state still produced gold in 2007, but all of them were byproducts of copper mining. New Mexico has a long history of silver and gold mining. Others occurred around Pinos Altos, Silver City, Mogollón, the Jémez Mountains, the Caballo Mountains, and elsewhere. #exploring gold mines #exploring New Mexico #exploring ghost towns #back roads. Love New Mexico? Even when some lands do not fall into any of those categories, chances are you still require special permits to do your gold prospecting. The New Mexico Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Program and certain other abandoned mine land programs throughout the nation were formed by the passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) on May 2, 1977 (amended in 2006). However, in order to find them you need to research the stories, and have a metal detector. The news of LaRue’s extensive mining operation of gold soon reached the Spaniards in Mexico. Extreme dry climate also limited production, but it also means that modern day prospectors still have a good chance of finding their fortunes. This map shows 1 ; 6 active mining claims; 270 closed mining claims; 7 USGS records of mines in Eddy County, New Mexico. 11. And each time a lost treasure story is told, it changes. New Mexico’s roughly 13,019 active gold claims represent about 2.9% of all active gold claims in the lower 48 states. Gold mining in New Mexico really took off in the late 1800s, with an important strike in the Elizabethtown–Mount Baldy area, near Eagle Nest. Buenavista mine; Cananea mine; Chalchihuites mine; El Arco mine; El Pilar mine; La Caridad Mine; Gold. Development of some placer deposits, and abandonment of many others, continued … The best chance to find Gold in streams, placer deposits, and near old mines and prospects, is to know where the occurrence of gold has been found. Total production is still lower than Arizona, but it does not necessarily mean that New Mexico is not a promising state. Posted in NM Mines. Of those abandoned claims, 161,813 are lode and 16,431 are placer. In the summer, the temperature can be challenging especially considering that you probably have to prospect in the desert. Then, like many Western states, New Mexico experienced the boom and bust cycle of mining during the 19th century. Some mining was conducted in 1744 in southwestern New Mexico, largely by prospectors from the south. This is because people have a way of manipulating a story by choosing their own words or phrases just enough to throw the treasure … 276 records of mining claims on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Arizona . Variety of mining claims across the Western United states; including gold mines, silver mines, placer mines, lode mines, gem mines, unpatented mines and patented mines. New Mexico’s mining background was responsible for the boom – and often bust – of many towns in our state. The padre soon entrusted a number of Indians as well as monks to excavate the gold and convert it into bars. If you know of a local business that could use some extra support during these times, please nominate them here: At one point, this town near Magdalena had 3000 residents and seven saloons! For the next two years all the gold was stored in a large natural cave within the mountain. This list of mines in Mexico is subsidiary to the list of mines article and lists working, defunct and future mines in the country and is organised by the primary mineral output. $15 million of gold, silver, and copper were extracted from the mines here. Here are 14 New Mexican towns that sprang to life as a result of mining.