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Socorro Area

The Town of Socorro                                       Freight line.gif (71487 bytes)

Socorro is one of the oldest towns in New Mexico, dating from the Franciscan mission built in1615. When the mines and cattle operations stampeded into the area in the 1880's, Socorro became the railhead and regional supply center.    Four smelters refined silver ore; and one of them, Billings Smelter, was the principal smelter in the Territory. Illinois Brewery.gif (31803 bytes)

The Illinois Brewery housed the first ice plant in the Territory. Socorro Fire Clay Company supplied brick that can be seen in the walls of the Golden Crown Mill, one of several mills that supplied the Rio Grande valley with flour, and the only brick mill standing today.

 

Only the slag piles are left of the smelters, but the mill, brewery, hotel, and a railroad depot   stand out as landmarks of an era.

 

Hammel Mill Museum (Illinois Brewery) http://www.nmt.edu/~nmtlib/LOCAL/hammel.html
Golden Crown Mill: This is an unusual three story building that used gravity to feed grain from the top floor down to the grinders and on to the loading docks. A single cylinder Atlas engine powered the plant, which closed down in 1933.
New Mexico Tech (formerly the School of Mines) has over 100 years of history in New Mexico. Learn more about it at: http://members.aol.com/hsauertieg/rt66/wpa_nm.htm
Val Verde Hotel: still a popular watering hole  http://www.nmt.edu/mainpage/socorro/valverde.html

 

Magdalena and the Kelly Mine                                               Kelly headframe.gif (33092 bytes)

The area of Magdalena was "discovered" by prospectors stationed at Pueblo Springs army fort.

There followed "….nearly 90 years of lead, zinc, silver, copper, and gold mining. The area produced $50-$60 million in ore between 1886 and 1945. E.W. Eaton's Patterson Canyon smelter, in operation in the early 1880's, was the first lead smelter in the southwest. The town of Kelly sprang up on the side of the mountain near the mines. At its height, Kelly was home to 3,000 people, with shops, doctors, saloons, churches, hotels, and schools."

 

In 1884, a branch line of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad turned the area into a major trade center. It was the trailhead for the cattle drives (21,000 in 1919) across the San Augustin Plains. As the lead zinc mines played out, and the "beefsteak trail" was replaced by other modes of transport, the miners and ranchers holstered their guns and left town.

Learn more about its history at http://www.magdalena-nm.com/history.html

 

 

 

Very Large Array (VLA)

VLA.gif (47399 bytes)This array of radio telescopes 60 miles west of Socorro is an impressive site on the ground, and you can join Jodie Foster scanning the heavens too!

                                                                                         

The proposed VLA Expansion Project would upgrade the existing antennas in a number of ways:
The enhanced VLA would be
100 times faster
much more frequency-agile
50 times better at resolving details
...and all for a small fraction of the replacement cost of the instrument.

for a progress report, go to the VLA web site: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/vla/EVLA/Progress.shtml

Links on the web for Central New Mexico:

To learn more about the Middle Rio Grande aquifer and geography, try the USGS site: http://rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/public/mrgb/ofr97-116.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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