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Hillsboro

Hillsboro’s history is a tale ripped from the pages of a western novel. Geronimo’s Apache tribe once roamed the rugged Black Range Mountains above where Hillsboro sits along the Percha Creek. The center of a thriving mining district that included Kingston and Lake Valley, in the 1880s the region’s rich silver strikes attracted thousands of treasure-seeking prospectors, who dug mines and tunnels with sweat and blood.

From hundreds of holes in the ground, miners produced millions of dollars worth of silver, attracting merchants, saloons, and madams seeking gold from another kind of digging. This pioneer community suffered from hunger, illness, Apache raids, and each other. Some did strike it rich. But these classic boom towns went bust, when in 1893 the price of silver took a permanent nose dive. People left in droves. From more than 10,000, fewer than 2,000 residents remained by the mid 1890s.

Hillsboro managed to survive, buoyed by gold mines in the area, and surrounded by area ranches that used the wild and rocky landscape for grazing cattle. The city served as the Sierra County seat of government from these territory days, until 1936.

In1892 Hillsboro residents constructed a large, handsome brick courthouse as a symbol of their commitment to civilization in the harsh, lawless frontier. The courthouse is said to be the same design as the one that still stands in Tombstone, Arizona.

Hillsboro
Hillsboro, NM 87937
www.hillsboronm.org/
www.hillsboronm.com/

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