Election Day -- 100 Years Ago

These election delegates posed for this photograph in Hillsboro in 1910.  Missing are the smiles. The men look stern, serious. Elections were and are serious, and the citizens around Hillsboro participated in their share of elections, and produced politicos that shaped the state, like Nicholas Galles and Edward Tittmann. Note the 46-star flag. The New Mexico and Arizona territories were about to enter the Union.  Though not a home-grown Sierra County resident, William "Bull" Andrews, who lived at Andrews, New Mexico, a few miles northeast of Hillsboro, was New Mexico's territorial delegate to Congress in 1910. Andrews was "bullish" in pushing statehood with his Pennsylvanian connections to Senator Matt Quay, for whom Quay County is named.

Happy Hillsboro Halloween

People paid money to see this movie, filmed in Hillsboro in 1970. You can almost taste buttery popcorn and hear the tinny sound coming from the speaker hanging in the car window at the drive-in. Remember those?

We'll leave the movie reviews to others. But know this: the film has some historic value. You'll get glimpses of what Hillsboro looked like 40 years ago. Today's General Store and Country Cafe was the sheriff's office in the flick. You get long looks of the old high school, Union Church, Miller house, and Nunn house, and the courthouse ruin.

And there's a mad man with axe from front of today's Percha Creek Traders' when the place was a hotel. Incidentally someone really was murdered on the street some years ago in front of the place. Bullets and beer didn't mix.

Maybe you'll recognize the home where this scene was filmed. Note the double doors and transom.

Students at New Mexico State University spoofed bits of the movie in 2008. There's a few town and landscape shots that you might recognize.

And if you are so inclined, for $2.99 you can watch the entire movie online. Incidentally, the Hillsboro area would come to host a few other films and TV commercials in the years that followed, and they too will someday have historic value.

Camp Boyd ca 1885

Here's another look at Camp Boyd (aka Camp Hillsboro) taken between 1885 and 1886. The military were stationed at Hillsboro to protect the town from depredation by Apaches. Photo courtest Matti Nunn

The 8th Cavalry or ROTC?

"The most stately building in the Territory," as the old Sierra County Courthouse was once called, stands on the hill behind this military encampment. That dates this photo as post-1892, when courthouse was built. Is this an ROTC camp from New Mexico A&M (present-day NMSU) 70 miles to the south, or is this U.S. Cavalry? The Apache Indian threat was much reduced by the 1890s.  George Albion Miller, who was born in the home behind the tree near the courthouse in 1905, was an engineering student at A&M,was in ROTC, and did own a camera, we know. Photo courtesy Matti and Patti Nunn

Camp Boyd aka Camp Hillsboro 1885

U.S. Cavalry were encamped at Hillsboro for about a year, from 1885 to 1886. This image shows men in formation, near the present site of the Cunningham ranch in Percha Creek. Photo courtesy Matti Nunn.

Correspondence conducted at Camp Boyd are housed at the National Archives and Records Center.
 http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=606855&jScript=true

Nana the Apache

Nana, pronounced Naw-Nay, a Warm Spring Apache leader took the U.S. Cavalry on a circuitous route that went through Hillsboro in 1881.  Nana, an arthritic 75-year-old and his band of about 40 men alluded hundreds of soldiers, killing an estimated for 40 to 80 people.

Nana blasted through Gold Dust, a tent camp northeast of Hillsboro, then skirted Hillsboro. He was pursued by citizens and soldiers, led by Lt. George Smith from Ft. Cummings and mining engineer, George Daly near the site of Lake Valley.  Both were killed by the Apaches in Gavilan Canyon, Smith's body grossly mutilated.  Lake Valley was originally called Daly, later called Sierra City before the name it's known by today.  Nana's band continued on, making their way into Mexico.

"Nana's Raid" a book by anthropologist Stephen Lekson is a well-documented read about the historic event.

Photo National Archives and Records Administration.

Jailhouse door

Valentina Madrid and Alma Lyons no doubt heard the thud of hammers on planks, as men built the gallows outside this jail cell. The two gals were sentenced to hang by Judge Frank W. Parker for the premeditated murder of Valentina's husband, Manuel Madrid. Manuel's demise, and the eventual outcome of the sentencing are well documented in Robert Torrez' book Myth of the Hanging Tree: Stories of Crime and Punishment in Territorial New Mexico.

The Hillsboro Historical Society seeks to purchase and preserve this building and the attending courthouse ruin. Photo courtesy Craig Springer

Sierra County Jail

The Sierra County jail house, as it appeared in 1966. The jail was home to a few bad guys and gals like, Oliver Lee, Jim Gilliland, "Kit" Joy, Valentina Madrid, and Alma Lyons. Photo courtesy Patti Nunn.

Historic Sierra County Courthouse in 2010

The courthouse east entrance, from the inside looking north. With the safe still in the courthouse ruin, it gives the sense of a hasty departure. Photo courtesy Craig Springer

Historic Sierra County Courthouse in 1976

The Sierra County Courthouse was sold, and fell into ruin. This is how it looked in 1976, taken by Ohio State University in a Historic American Buildings Survey.

The Hillsboro Historical Society seeks to purchase and stabilize the historic ruin, and its attending jail house. Photo American Memory Project, Library of Congress.