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THE WELL WEST OF
TOWN
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SHAKESPEARE has had
several names through the years and only acquired its present one in
1879 at the beginning of its second mining boom. It is located here
because there was a small but reliable spring located in the arroyo
west of the town. This reliable water source attracted many people.
Indians who ground mesquite beans left their metates scattered about,
probably a few Spaniards stopped by, and then some of the Forty-niners
who were taking the southern route to the gold fields of California,
watered their stock at this little spring. About 1856 a building was
built here by the Army, evidently to serve as a relay station on the
Army Mail line between Fort Thorn on the Rio
Grande and Fort Buchanan, south of
Tucson. This spring served as an alternate stopping place for the San Antonio and San Diego mail line but was
bypassed by the first Butterfield coaches. However
before the Butterfield quit running in 1861, they had moved the road
back up in the hills and had built a square adobe stage station here.
During this time the spring was sometimes called Mexican Spring
according to old timers. |
The outbreak of the Civil War completely
disrupted the stage line, what with fighting around the eastern
terminals and Union soldiers being moved back East, leaving the
Southwest to the mercy of the Apaches. But the Civil War brought more
people to Mexican Spring-- soldiers of both sides. First a small
detachment of hard-riding Texans led by Captain Sherod
Hunter traveled through this area on their way to
Tucson, and from there, they hoped, to the gold fields of California.
Their hopes were futile because California was overwhelmingly Union in
its sentiments. Carelton and the California Volunteers rode east across
Arizona and met the tattered Texans at Picacho Pass, west of Tucson.
The Texans were defeated and trailed back to Texas, their dreams of
California gold crushed under overwhelming numbers. During this time
one or two more buildings were built at Mexican Spring by the Soldiers.
The largest one was later referred to as the "old stone fort."
With the close of the Civil War a new stage line was started by Kerens and Mitchell. They hired
men in San Diego to reopen some of the Butterfield's stations. A man named
John Eversen was hired to reopen this station. Evensen came here in
1865 and lived on here until his death in 1887. He said that when he
came here the little settlement was called Grant. |
In 1870, some of the prospectors hanging
around this little station discovered samples of very rich silver ore
in the surrounding hills and they went hunting for financing to develop their new
mines. Some of them must have had San Francisco connections because
they interested the group of financiers connected with William Ralston, President of
the Bank of California. A company was formed and the town was named in
Ralston's honor. The town grew rapidly and newspapers as far away as
San Diego carried stories about the promising new camp. The population
boomed to 3000 people with independent miners flocking in to try to get
a piece of the action. The company had some hired fighting men on their
payroll to keep these independent miners off. The rich silver mined out
very rapidly but then the rumor began to circulate that diamonds had
been discovered on Lee's Peak west of town. The Hired Fighting men
stayed on the payroll, the stages kept running, and the town boomed
until sometime in 1872 when the diamond swindle was revealed as a hoax
all over the country. Most people left town for fear of being
implicated in the crooked work and the town almost emptied of people. |
OLD TIME COOKING
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In 1879 Colonel William G. Boyle got hold of
most of the good claims and renamed the town Shakespeare to eliminate
memories of the earlier swindles. With financing coming from St. Louis
this time he started the Shakespeare Gold and Silver Mining and Milling
Company and the town enjoyed a second boom. More men brought their
families and the place settled down to some extent but it never got a
church , a school, a newspaper, or any real law. Occasionally there
would be a serious fight and some of the losers might be hanged to the
timbers of the Grant House dining room.
The railroad missed Shakespeare by about 3 miles and the beginning of
the new railroad town of Lordsburg was the death knell for Shakespeare.
Businesses gradually moved down to the new town to be closer to the
source of supplies. The depression of 1893 caused the mines to close
and most people moved away to find jobs elsewhere. People often took
the roofs and other salvageable material off of their houses and left
the walls to crumble in the weather. In 1907 a new copper mine about a
mile south of Shakespeare started to work and some of those miners
rented remaining buildings in the old town. Many ghost stories date
from this era when the older residents seemed to come back to haunt the
newer ones. In 1935 the town and buildings were purchased by Frank and Rita Hill for a ranch.
They maintained the buildings as well as they could with limited
resources.
Shakespeare was
declared a National Historic Site in 1970. Frank Hill passed away in
1970, Rita in 1985, and Janaloo in 2005. They
are buried at the top of the hill overlooking the town. Janaloo's
husband, Manny Hough, continues to
work toward preserving the town as a monument to the Real Old West.
Many of Shakespeare's more "colorful" residents, prospectors, and
regular citizens of Shakespeare have their final resting place at
Shakespeare Cemetary, You'll see the cemetary on the left side of the
road on your way to Shakespeare.
Read about the early days in the Southwest from a first person account
by J.C. Brock. |
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OLD MINES IN THE
PYRAMID MNTS
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OUTLAWS AND LAWMEN
The annals of Shakespeare's history have no
tales of fearless lawmen stalking the streets in search of wrongdoers.
According to old timers, there was no law here at all-just the agreed
upon rule that "if you killed someone you had to dig the grave." This
kept down indiscriminate shootings. During the days of the Silver
Strike and the Diamond Swindle, the silver mining company from San
Francisco had on their payroll some Texas boys whose job it was to keep
order and to guard the company interests mainly by preventing
independent miners from staking claims. Though the Company sometimes
called these fellows "Vigilantes," others just called them "Hired
Fighting Men."
Quite a few of these men are now referred to
as outlaws by modern writers although the word "outlaw" should
designate a man who is "outside the law," or wanted by the law. Many of
the prominent so-called "outlaws" had no warrants out for their arrests
and so cannot be technically considered outlaws at all though they may
have been pretty hard characters.
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A prime example of this type was Curly Bill
Brocius. No one seems to know where Bill came from
but it seems pretty certain that his roots were in Texas. Old timers
said that he ran the "hired fighting men" at Ralston. With the end of
the silver strike and diamond swindle and no mining company to pay his
salary, Bill Brocius drifted south and west. Large herds of wild cattle
roamed the Animas and San Simon valley and these Texas boys had a ready
market for beef because the Army had to feed the Apaches on the
reservations. When the cowboys depleted the wild cattle north of the
Mexican border, they gathered herds south of the border. Soon
retaliatory raids were made by Mexican ranchers and there was almost a
state of war along the border between Texans and Mexicans. With Curly
rode other men and according to old-timers some of these were Sandy
King, the Clantons, Jack McKenzie, Milt Hicks, George Turner and later Zwing Hunt, Billy
Grounds, John Ringo, Jim Hughes and Joe Hill. These men all considered
Ralston-Shakespeare their home town, the place they came to for their
supplies and to get their mail.
The new town of Tombstone started in 1879 and Curly Bill with some of
his friends, drifted that way to look over the new town, to check out
chances of making money, or of having a good time. On October 28, 1880,
Curly Bill killed Marshall White of Tombstone, a shooting which was
declared an accident. Curly stayed out of Tombstone after that but he
freely rode the trails between Charleston, Galleyville, Shakespeare and
the Mexican Border, dealing in cattle. Many accusations were thrown his
way but no warrants were issued.
In 1881 Curly Billy disappeared from the southwestern scene. Wyatt
Earp, claimed that he killed Curly Bill. There were no confirming
witnesses except for a few of Wyatt's close friends and no body. Curly
Bill's friends stoutly denied this ever happened. Neither side could
produce Curly, either dead or alive. Some say that Curly Bill Brocius
simply rode out of the country and became a respectable rancher in
Mexico or Montana or somewhere else. Old timers here told another
story. They said that Curly died from a case of measles combined with
the effects of an old gunshot wound and that he was buried in the
basement of the General Merchandise to keep his enemies from being able
to gloat over his death. |
Clanton is another name which is often
numbered among the "outlaw" faction. While Newman Hays
Clanton or some of his older boys may have been among
the "hired fighting men" at Shakespeare and may have engaged in some
shady cattle dealing with Curly Bill, they were much more settled
citizens. Records show that N.H. Clanton was a farmer, a freighter and
latter had a dairy at Charleston. His youngest son, Billy was killed in
the famous OK Corral fight in Tombstone in 1881 and N.H. Clanton was
killed with a group of respectable cattlemen who were moving a herd of
cattle from the Animas to the San Simon Valley. People at Shakespeare
were saddened by these killings because the Clantons had been well
respected here.
John Ringo was a frequent
visitor to Shakespeare because his friends, the Hughes family moved
here when they left their ranch on the San Simon. The oldest Hughes
Boy, Jim, was another member of the so-called outlaws and he and John
often rode together. John Ringo bought his last pair of boots in the
General Merchandise, the boots that he tied to his saddle horn before
shooting himself in Turkey Creek Canyon in 1881. |
OUR DISPLAY OF
PERIOD TOOLS
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Sandy King, one of the long-time members of
the San Simon
Cowboys and Russian Bill, (1880 Census) a romantic
looking foreigner, were hanged to the
timbers of the Grant House Dining Room on November 9, 1881. The next
morning the Stage Keeper told the stage passengers that Russian Bill had stolen a
horse and Sandy King was a damned nuisance. (thanks to Woody Campbell
for the news article and census)
In the middle 1870's a skinny blond kid with a tendency to buck teeth,
drifted into town looking for a job. He was too young and small for
heavy work but he got employment washing dishes in the Stratford Hotel.
After he left Shakespeare he headed for Arizona. From there he drifted
to Lincoln County where he became known as the famous, "Billy the Kid."
During the 1890's some members of the Wild Bunch or Black Jack
Ketchum's gang hung out in the hills south of town,
camping in an old mine tunnel and probably buying supplies here.
Shakespeare was almost as lawless during the days of the third mining
boom when the buildings were being rented by people working in the
Eighty-Five Mine. There was a Deputy Sheriff at the Mine a mile south
and a Deputy in Lordsburg, three miles north, but neither lawman spent
much time enforcing law here at Shakespeare. Strange people came and
went for this was the time of the revolutions in Mexico and this place
is only a day's ride from the border. Some say Pancho Villa was here at
least once on a horse buying trip. |
WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE?
Visit our Books in Print Section
SHAKESPEARE NEWS
On April
10, 1997 there was a terrible fire. About 1:30 P.M.
Janaloo and Manny were resting in their basement apartment after lunch
when they heard a loud roar. They ran outside to find the Blacksmith
Shop in flames. Manny grabbed fire extinguishers and started to fight
the blaze while Janaloo called 911, getting through just before the
phone system went out.
The Lordsburg Volunteer Fire Department
responded as fast as it could -- perhaps 10 minutes -- but the 50
mile-an-hour winds whipped the blaze up into the eaves of the General Merchandise Building. Janaloo
rushed to try to save some of her precious research material and
manuscripts but managed to get only three drawers out of about 30. It
was some of the most irreplaceable that she saved. Several unpublished
books were lost. No personal possessions were saved except for a few
heirlooms. Janaloo and Manny got out with the clothes on their backs.
All photos and items on display in the General Merchandise went up in
smoke.
It is difficult to express the devastating
grief we feel at losing one of our most beautiful buildings. There is,
of course, no insurance. They do not write policies on isolated ghost
towns and money cannot replace something that is priceless. However, we
want everyone to know: WE ARE CARRYING ON! Shakespeare is not deserted.
It is fortunate that we obtained our formal
non-profit status before this disaster because now all contributions
are tax deductible. Not only are cash donations deductible, but we find
that a businessman or contractor can do work for the town and deduct
the normal price he or she would charge for the services. If you would
like to help the town out, send tax deductible contributions to: SHAKESPEARE GHOST TOWN, P.O. BOX
253, LORDSBURG, NM 88045
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Shakespeare
Photos 1965-1980's
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SHAKESPEARE GHOST TOWN ON MOST ENDANGERED LIST
Shakespeare Ghost town has been selected to
the New Mexico Heritage Preservation Alliance's list of most Endangered
Places. It is one of eleven significant historic resources in New
Mexico to be so recognized and one of only three in the southern part
of the State.
The New Mexico Heritage Preservation Alliance
is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation, promotion
and stewardship of New Mexico's unique heritage. Their list of
endangered places provides a forum for New Mexicans to discuss what is
culturally and historically significant about their heritage. The
Alliance has no financial assistance to give but they are committed to
making the places on the list the focus of upcoming activities in 1999
and are sometimes able to channel available resources toward sites
needing preservation and repair.
Shakespeare Ghost Town has been recognized as
a National Historic site since 1970 but gets no help from the Federal
Government. All repair and restoration work has been done by the
owners, using proceeds from tours, book sales and donations.
Shakespeare Ghost Town Inc. is now organized as a nonprofit corporation
and donations are tax deductible.
The historic buildings at Shakespeare are
showing more deterioration from age and weather damage. The disastrous
fire in April of 1997 caused the loss of three buildings. Two of these
have already been rebuilt but reconstruction of the General Merchandise
will require major funding from some source. This recognition by the
New Mexico Preservation Alliance may help to bring this funding to the
old town.
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SHAKESPEARE GHOST TOWN
P.O. BOX 253
LORDSBURG, NM 88045
575. 542.9034
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