Teapot Dome: Literature and Litigation

by Mark B. Thompson

I must admit my surprise in February 2008 when I first saw a Los Angeles Times book review of Laton McCartney’s book, The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country. Really! After over 80 years and numerous political scandals would Americans still be interested in a 1920’s political scandal? Notwithstanding the involvement of an ancestor in the litigation, (who died when I was only three years old), I had limited my reading to the chapter on Albert Bacon Fall in W.A. Keleher’s Fabulous Frontier, but with this new publication I thought I should see if I could get through a whole book.

McCartney’s book may not have been a “best seller” but you have to appreciate a writer who could start a bribery scandal story with a chapter on an Oklahoma oil man who wanted to be appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Harding, only to be killed by his mistress before Harding’s inauguration on March 4, 1921. As you might guess from the subtitle, McCartney takes a “tabloid” approach to the story and attempts to place Albert Fall of New Mexico, the Secretary of the Interior appointed by Harding, in the context of a corrupt Harding administration. Although it is an entertaining read, and one does learn the basics of the questionable leasing of public lands for oil development, it is not clear that McCartney succeeded in making “Teapot Dome” part of a larger “culture of corruption.” 

Albert Fall (l) and Ed Doheny, with lawyers Frank Hogan and Mark B. Thompson I. Fall and Doheny met in Kingston, NM in 1886. Attorney Thompson is connected to Hillsboro history too, having married Nicholas Galles' daughter, Georgia. This photo was taken during the Teapot Dome scandal trials on Oct. 2, 1929. Courtesy Associated Press

Having survived the first read, I next tried David Stratton’s Tempest over Teapot Dome: The Story of Albert B. Fall, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1998. As the subtitle implies, this is a biography of the “main character” of Teapot Dome and the book should please those interested in the New Mexico history. Stratton spends the first two thirds of his book laying the foundation for a story of one man’s malfeasance, not a conspiracy by “big oil” or the “Ohio gang” of President Harding. At the same time, Stratton’s extensive biography of Albert Fall in some ways shows that a “fall from grace” was not inevitable.  Without exonerating Fall of misdeeds, Stratton shows a different context, both political and personal.

W.A. Keleher, a prominent and successful lawyer in addition to his role as a New Mexico historian, does exonerate Fall, at least to the extent of saying he did not believe the evidence showed “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Fall had committed a crime. [Keleher, in his 1962, revised edition of Fabulous Frontier recommends yet another full story, Burl Noggle, Teapot Dome: Oil and Politics in the 1920’s (LSU Press, 1962), which I have not yet read.] It should be noted that Keleher was referring to all of the evidence, not just the evidence submitted to the jury which convicted Fall in the Elk Hills bribery prosecution. On the other hand, we should not overlook the fact that Fall received “loan proceeds” and payment for an interest in his ranch clandestinely and asked a good friend, the publisher of the Washington Post, to lie to a Senate investigating committee. One could conclude that Fall knew he had abused his position as Secretary of the Interior.

What is called “the Teapot Dome scandal,” involved two separate “untapped” oil reserves held by the United States for the U.S. Navy, one at Elk Hills near Bakersfield, California and one north of Casper, Wyoming, commonly known as “Teapot Dome.” The two transactions which led to the scandal(s) are complex but they in essence involved Secretary Fall persuading President Harding to transfer some authority from the Secretary of the Navy to Interior and Fall’s use of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 to lease the reserves for exploration and development. As Fall negotiated the deals with their respective companies, he borrowed money from Edward Doheny, giving him a promissory note as consideration, and accepted government bonds from Harry Sinclair, ostensibly as the purchase price for an interest in Fall’s Three Rivers, New Mexico ranch in Otero County. A good synopsis of the two transactions, as well as the “side deals,” can be found in two U.S. Supreme decisions concluding the civil cases brought by the United States to set aside the leases. The holding of both cases is that the executive branch of the government lacked legislative authority to lease the naval oil reserves for development.

Because he is writing a biography, Stratton deals with two issues that are probably of keen interest to New Mexicans. The “defense” of Fall and Doheny in the three criminal cases involving Elk Hills was that Doheny had simply made a loan to a friend. In the final trial, the prosecution of Doheny for giving a bribe, the oilman took the stand and described his early days in Kingston, New Mexico and how Fall came along in 1886, the two men becoming good friends. Stratton does not directly dispute the stories of friendship, but implies that this “mining buddies” story was embellished. It may be that there is no independent evidence, like a partnership in business, for example, that would support the self-serving testimony at trial.

Stratton also covers Fall’s early mining ventures in Mexico and his career in the U.S. Senate. Fall served during the final effort by Congress to find the “common ground” necessary for passage of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, with Fall obviously taking the side of the states and natural resource developers. [See e.g., speeches on Aug. 22 & 25, 1919. (58 Cong. Rec. pp. 4168-71, 4269-70 & 4280-90).]  Fall, as Secretary of the Interior just a year after passage of the landmark law, might have taken the “high road,” using his bully pulpit to encourage exploitation of federal lands. We might know him today as the “anti-Gifford Pinchot,” a hero of natural resource development! Instead of becoming an embarrassment for New Mexicans, he might have been hailed as the man who moved our economy forward. One can imagine the legislature renaming a certain resource rich county, originally named for St. John in 1887, as “Albert Bacon Fall County.” It was not to be.

Mark B. Thompson, III is a former member of the New Mexico Bar. His grandfather, Mark B. Thompson, was Albert Bacon Fall's attorney. The eldest Thompson married Hillsboro native, Edith Georgia Galles, daughter of Sierra County pioneer, Nicholas Galles and wife Harriett Stocker Galles.

APPENDIX: The “Teapot Dome” litigation, mostly final results, in chronological order.

(1) December 16, 1926.  Fall and Doheny acquitted by jury of conspiracy to lease Elk Hills.  “Fall And Doheny Freed.” The New York Times (Friday, Dec. 17, 1926), p. 1.

(2) February 28, 1927. In a civil case brought by the government, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the court of appeals decision terminating the Elk Hills lease on the grounds that the lease violated federal law. Pan-American Petroleum & Transp. Co. v. United States, 273 U.S. 456 (1927).

(3) October 10, 1927.  In a civil case brought by the government, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the court of appeals decision terminating the Teapot Dome lease on the grounds that the lease violated federal law. Mammoth Oil Co. v. United States, 275 U.S. 13 (1927).  (In this case, the U.S. District Court in Wyoming had denied relief to the government.)

(4) April 21, 1928. Harry F. Sinclair acquitted of conspiring with Albert Fall to obtain Teapot Dome lease.  (Prosecution had originally charged both Fall and Sinclair but proceeded against Sinclair alone due to Fall’s obtaining a continuance due to his ill health; Fall never tried for this crime.)  “Sinclair Acquitted Of Oil Lease Fraud; Jury Out 2 Hours,” The New York Times (Sunday, April 22, 1928), p.1.

(5) October 25, 1929.  Fall found guilty by D.C. jury of taking a bribe from Doheny for the Elk Hills lease.  “Fall Found Guilty in Oil Bribe Case; Jury Asks Mercy,” The New York Times (Saturday, October 16, 1929), p. 1.

(6) March 22, 1930. Doheny is acquitted by a D.C. jury of giving the bribe to Fall to obtain the Elk Hills lease.  “Doheny Is Acquitted Of Fall Oil Bribe; Sees ‘Hounding’ Over,” The New York Times (Sunday, March 23, 1930), p. 1.

(7) April 6, 1931.  U. S. Court of Appeals upholds conviction of Fall for taking a bribe from Doheny.  Fall v. United States, 49 F.2^nd 506 (D.C. Circuit 1931). (U.S. Sup. Ct. later denied certiorari, i.e. refused to hear the case.)  Fall is allowed to serve his time in the New Mexico State Penitentiary.  Santa Fe legend has it that he was allowed frequent visits by Mrs. Fall and possibly even unofficial “release time.”

In addition, two cases “arose out of” the Teapot Dome scandal, but technically are not part of the effort by the United States, in either civil or criminal proceedings, to set aside the leases and punish the wrongdoers.  On April 8, 1929, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Harry Sinclair for contempt of Congress, i.e., refusing to give testimony to a Senate committee. (The opinion contains an outline of the Senate investigation history.)  Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263 (1929).  On June 3, 1929, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Harry Sinclair and others for contempt of court, i.e. for “tampering” with the jury in the conspiracy case against Fall & Sinclair, which had resulted in a mistrial on November 2, 1927.  Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 749 (1929). Sinclair’s sentences for these two criminal convictions would be served concurrently in the District of Columbia jail.   

Congrats Class of 1931

This May 1931 Hillsboro High Times has more ads than copy. You can soon read the entire issue, plus the Feb-March 1931 issue at the Hillsboro Community Library, housed in the former high school. Both are a generous gift to the Hillsboro Historical Society from Sierra County resident, Celisse Behnen.

Hillsboro High Times, May 1931.

The Hillsboro High School was built in 1922 by the architectural firm Trost & Trost of El Paso. The architect's work not only graces Hillsboro's skyline, but that of El Paso, Tucson, and Albuquerque. Several New Mexico State University building were designed by Trost & Trost. The Hillsboro High School building is today the center of community activities, and the only public building left in the former Sierra County seat. --Craig Springer

A rendering of the Hillsboro High School, now the Hillsboro Community Center, drawn in 1921 by Trost & Trost. The original is housed at the El Paso Public Library.

Code Name: Geronimo

By Craig Springer
Unless you live under a rock, you no doubt have heard that the U.S. military evoked the name of a former (albeit transient) Sierra County, New Mexico, resident in its designs to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "Operation Geronimo" was the tag given to the recent Navy Seal operation. President Obama confirmed in a recent 60 Minutes interview that when bin Laden was shot it was communicated by, "Geronimo - EKIA," code for "enemy killed in action."
 
The original "operation Geromino" went down in southern New Mexico 126 years ago, with there being significant U.S. Army and Apache activity at Kingston, Lake Valley, and Hillsboro. The threat of loss of life and property by Apaches was significant on a number of occasions from 1877 until 1886, such that commerce and travel were conducted at great risk. Observers at the time commented that Apache depredations prostrated the mining industry. Hillsboro was the first of the three towns to be founded, in 1877, followed by Lake Valley and Kingston in the early '80s.

The Apache, Geronimo, as he appeared before surrender in 1886. Geronimo and his band attacked outlying ranches near Lake Valley a few months before this image was taken. Library of Congress.

The Apache named Goyakla, or "One Who Yawns," was nicknamed "Geronimo" by the Mexican military when he escaped injury in gun fire, the Mexican soldiers evoking the name of St. Jerome for the Apache's remarkable luck in cheating death. "Geronimo" became an American war cry during World War II.

The U.S. Army put considerable resources on the ground to capture or kill the Apache paladin and his lieutenant so to speak, Naiche, the son of Cochise. Geromino's last outbreak from the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation occurred in 1885 and lasted until his surrender in the fall of 1886. Some of those U.S. Army resources were at Camp Hillsboro/Camp Boyd, about a mile north of today's Hillsboro post office.

This string of U.S. Army soldiers are heading out of the Percha Creek bottom at Camp Hillsboro/Camp Boyd. The photo was taken by Kingston photographer, J.C. Burge circa late 1885. The camera looks toward the northeast, with Hillsboro only a short walk away. The former camp is on occupied private property. Courtesy Patti Nunn.

Naiche, seen here a prisoner of war circa 1898, was with Geronimo to the last. Library of Congress.

The national media carried news about the Indian campaign. The 1885 Harper's Weekly shows Ft Bayard soldiers in a training exercise. Ft Bayard is roughly 25 miles from where Geronimo last struck near Lake Valley. Library of Congress.

Companies of infantry and cavalry were stationed for about a year--mid-1885 until September of 1886--at Camp Hillsboro, later called Camp Boyd in honor of Capt. Orsemus Bronson Boyd who died in the Black Range. "Operation Geronimo," the one that unfolded in Pakistan last week, has come under criticism as being insensitive to Native Americans for relating the Apache to bin Laden. Understandably, American Indians, especially those who have proudly served in the U.S. military would rather not be viewed as in league as with an avowed enemy of the U.S. Witness New Mexico's own Navajo Code Talkers who were vital in the Pacific theatre in World War II.

But one cannot ignore the historical significance that Geronimo had locally--and nationally. Thousands of soldiers, both American and Mexican, were put on the ground in his pursuit. Hundreds of people died in the Geronimo campaign and other notable conflicts with Apache men, both his contemporaries, and in the years before him: Ulzana, Chihuahua, Victorio, Nana, Cochise, Mangas. Civilians, soldiers, and Apaches were victims of the violence.

U.S. Army surgeon and well known naturalist Edgar Mearns for whom Mearns quail is named took this image in eastern Arizona. Scenes like this unfolded near Lake Valley on Berrenda Creek, west of Hillsboro on Percha Creek, and through the Black Range. Library of Congress.

Geronimo was not only an enemy to the U.S. military, he was an enemy of some of his own Apache people. Companies of enlisted Apaches, led by U.S. Army officers chased after Geronimo. Geronimo murdered and kidnapped Anglo, Hispanic, and Apache people--men, women, and young children. He kidnapped Chief Loco's band and ensured that eventually all of the Chiricahua Apaches would be treated as prisoners of war, and removed to Florida, and eventually Oklahoma by way of a stay at Alabama. The condition of the then imprisoned Apaches at Ft. Sill is surveyed in the recently published book, Chief Loco: Apache Peacemaker, written by a descendant of the Apache leader. Geronimo lamented late in life that he had no friends among his own people.

Geronimo, a prisoner of war, taken circa 1898. Library of Congress.

Though the Geronimo Trail National Scenic Byway slices through Kingston and Hillsboro, perhaps his most significant presence was made at Lake Valley. On September 10, 1885, Geronimo's band moved over Macho Canyon and shot rancher Brady Pollock twice, then crushed his head with a boulder. Onward the Apaches went, north to McKnight Ranch on Berrenda Creek where they stole horses. Geronimo made it over the Mimbres Mountains to the west, probably going over the pass at the head of today's Pollock Canyon, and down Gavilan Canyon, the site of a battle with Nana in 1881. On September 11 more would die. By noon, Avaristo Abeyta, George Horn, and 17-year-old Martin McKinn were dead, just over the Black Range from Kingston. The teenager's younger brother, 9-year-old Santiago "Jimmy" McKinn witnessed Geronimo crush his brother's head and then don his brother's jacket. With little Jimmy McKinn Geronimo headed into the Black Range, chased by cavalry and a militia from Hillsboro, headed by Sierra County pioneers Nicholas Galles and Frank W. Parker, the latter a future supreme court justice.

Geronimo evaded capture, but surrendered a year later, the last to give in to the concentration policies of the U.S. government. The McKinn boy remarkably survived and was returned to his parents when Geronimo surrendered. You can learn more about how the young McKinn lived his life in this story by Jerry Egan, called The Captive in Desert Exposure. The original "operation Geronimo" came to a close in September 1886. Many lives lost, many lives ruined. The Chiricahuas--the entire tribe--became prisoners of war and were removed from the Southwest.

These events are well documented in scholarly works, and among the best resources is the book, From Cochise to Geronimo by Edwin R. Sweeney. Members of the Hillsboro Historical Society have written a book, titled, Around Hillsboro, due to be released in August. In this book, you'll see rare images related the Apache wars--and a whole lot more.

Hillsboro from the Air

Who ever it was that said a picture is worth a thousand words had never seen an aerial photograph.

These two images seem to have been taken on the same flight, judging from the sequence numbers in the bottom-left corner -- numbers 415 and 418. So where are those images in between -- 416 and 417?  And are there similar images of Kingston or Lake Valley?

The photographer and the dates of these images are unknown. Unfortunately, the text in the bottom-left corner is covered up in this copy, provided by the Gila National Forest - Black Range District.

Here's what we do know from the images: there are no bridges. The roads are not paved. The smelter is gone, but the slag pile, presently bisected by NM 152 mere feet from the bridge is visible in the top image. It's the dark fan-shaped figure along the south edge of the road that actually loops slightly around the dense material.

The Hillsboro High School is present in these images, and so is the Sierra County Courthouse. And the courthouse looks intact. That would roughly place these image between 1922 and 1939. So who took these photos, and why -- for what purpose? It's pure supposition, but these could be reconnaissance photos for a Depression-era New Deal agency, the Soil Conservation Service, today's Natural Resource Conservation Service, a part of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Or perhaps the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that operates the dams on the Rio Grande to the east, took these images related to flood control? Do take note of the building in the middle of the creek toward the bottom of the first image. Had it been built before Percha Creek evulsed to leave in "midstream?"

No matter who clicked the shutter, or paid for the flight, the subject matter is beautiful, illustrative -- and instructive -- about what once was and what is Hillsboro. -- Craig Springer

Custer's Roommate

If you own property in Sierra County, New Mexico, you recently received your “2011 notice of value,” stating the assessed value of your real property from the present county assessor, Keith W. Whitney. One hundred and twenty seven years ago, Sierra County got its first assessor, the colorful Lt. Col. James Porter Parker.

Parker was among the many Civil War soldiers who moved west after the war to make a life for themselves. Our former assessor Parker has been confused the district judge and eventual Supreme Court justice, Frank W. Parker. Parker the assessor was first cousin to Mary Todd Lincoln—his father was the brother of Mrs. Lincoln’s mother. His father’s family was originally from Kentucky. And here’s something else of note, Parker attended West Point and while there was a roommate of George Armstrong Custer.  

Lt. Col. James Porter Parker, CSA.

In the book, Faces of the Confederacy, an Album of Southern Soldiers and their Stories by Ronald S. Coddington.  We learn this: In 1861, Custer remembered “I bade a fond farewell to my former friend and classmate, with whom I had lived on terms of closer intimacy and companionship than with any other being. We had marched by each other’s side year by year . . . All this was to be thrust from our memory as far as possible and our paths and aims in life were to run counter to each other in the future.”

Their friendship might have seemed unlikely. One historian describes Parker as a stout, slow-moving, rugged young man almost the physical opposite of Custer. According to one cadet, the pair “fooled away many an hour that should have been devoted to study.” Parker was dismissed from school and did not graduate. He did receive a commission from the Union Army as a brevet second lieutenant. He resigned and became a Lt. Col. In the Confederate Army and joined the First Mississippi Light Artillery which was dispatched to Vicksburg. Later he took charge of several batteries and helped defend Port Hudson, Louisiana, during a 48-day siege that ended with surrender. Parker spent the next two years a POW in Union prisons. He signed the Oath of Allegiance in July 1863 and was released.

James Porter Parker stands behind the level with a survey crew.

James Porter Parker, Sierra County's first assessor, stands in front of a recently burnt out building in Kingston. James McKenna, in Black Range Tales, implied that Parker had a propensity for pomposity.

After the war, he found his way to Kingston and worked as a civil engineer and became the first Sierra County assessor in 1884. James McKenna wrote about Parker in his Black Range Tales, recalling a speech Parker made following a folly at a dance. McKenna noted that the portly Parker had squeezed into his West Point uniform for a dance. Parker never married and died in 1918, and is probably buried in one of the unmarked graves in the Kingston Cemetery.  --Matti Nunn Harrison

Happy Birthday, Sierra County

On April 3, 1884, Hillsboro businessman, postmaster, and territorial legislator, Nicholas Galles, succeeded in creating a new county, called Sierra. The people of what is today western Sierra County, were then back in the day, parts and parcel to Dona Ana, Socorro, and Grant counties. The need for a local government that was, well, more local, was expressed as early as two years after Hillsboro's 1877 founding.

Thirty-Four, published in Las Cruces, editorialized the need for a new county surrounding Hillsboro, in this issue dated November 19, 1879.

Seeking self determination, they got it, championed by a man who you might say was self-determined. Galles seemed to succeed at all things he laid his hand to. But that's another post some other time.

Nicholas Galles championed the creation of Sierra County in the New Mexico Territorial Legislature in 1884. Photo courtesy Mark B. Thompson III

Sierra County, you're 127 years old, and looking pretty good. -- Craig Springer

Wicked Kingston

Funds were being collected to build this Kingston church in 1888, by the Methodist Episcopal Mission Society. Photo courtesy Matti Nunn Harrison

Kingston's church is long gone, as are so many other buildings thrown up in a hurry in the 1880s boom town. The church, made of stone, would seem to have some permanency. Yet it did not stand the near-abandonment of Kingston after the Panic of 1893.

An 1888 publication of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church titled, The Gospel in All Lands, has some interesting things to say about Kingston. "If I could take the reader along our way on the main street to a school-house for evening service, he would see the typical mining town in all of its wickedness." The writer remarks on the behaviors of people he sees in Kingston, and how the church building is being funded.

Something else is worth noting, the reported population size of Kingston on page 61. It's far below the oft-reported 7,000 souls alleged to have lived there.  You'll have to see it for yourself. -- Craig Springer

Tom Ying’s meal tickets—Chinese translated

Two meal tickets from Tom Ying’s business are revealing for what they say in English—and Chinese. They are part of the collection held by the Black Range Museum, located in Ying’s old Hillsboro restaurant.

The older one is from Tom’s restaurant in Lake Valley and unless he ran two restaurants at the same time in two different localities, it must date from before 1896 when Sadie Orchard hired Tom to run the restaurant of her Ocean Grove Hotel in Hillsboro, the present-day Black Range Museum. On the back of this ticket, which has one meal left on it, Tom has written in Chinese the date when the ticket was validated. It reads: “wu yue san hao qi” or “begin May third.” No year is given. And, Tom has written the name of the person who bought the ticket. This “name” is not a Chinese name, and so it must refer to some American, whose name, of course, could not be written in Chinese. It’s what Tom called him in his own mind to identify his customer. Tom wrote “mai tie gui” or “the whitey who sells iron.” So, this ticket belonged to an ironmonger or perhaps the village blacksmith in Lake Valley.

Meal tickets used by patrons of Tom Ying's restaurants in Hillsboro and Lake Valley. Black Range Museum

The word I’ve translated as “whitey” is “gui,” and it means ghost or spirit or devil or any otherworldly, somewhat scary phenomenon. The 19^th century Chinese commonly called Europeans and Americans “gui,” and it was rendered by Americans as “foreign devils.”  It is a term with a lot of racist overtones. Considering that Tom was regularly called in Hillsboro “the Chinaman,” as in “the Chinaman’s restaurant,” Tom’s bit of reverse racism seems perfectly fitting.

The other ticket dates from Tom’s Hillsboro days, that is, from after 1896. It has on the front Tom’s Chinese name:  Ying Seng. Chinese put the family name before the given name.  It’s a somewhat unusual name since Chinese given names are usually two syllables long, and whoever is responsible for this one syllable name, either his parents or himself if it was self-chosen, was a bit arty. It’s the word for the magical herb ginseng. When I first came to Hillsboro in the late 1980’s, Felipe Roybal gave me an unused Tom Ying meal ticket from the 1950s, and it does not have Tom’s Chinese name on it. I assume that Tom used his Chinese name only in the early days, when he felt closer to Chinese things and so I would think this ticket dates from the turn of the century.

On the back of this second ticket, Tom wrote the validation date: “liu yue shi jiu chen qi” or “begin the morning of June 19^th.” Again, it has no year. Tom has also written what he called the owner: “xi lin.” Who could this have been? “Xi lin” may have been Tom’s attempt to sound out some American name with Chinese sounds. Most likely, Tom was Cantonese and would have pronounced these words something like “hei lum.” Was there a Hiram around?  But “xi lin” means “happy trees” and so it might refer to someone living in Happy Flats, as the eastern section of Hillsboro is called, who had some trees on his land. Or, does it refer to someone related to the Ocean Grove Hotel? Or, is this the meal ticket of Sadie herself, whose name we recall was Orchard, the happy orchard, though we’d have to assume that Sadie didn’t need to have a punch ticket.

What Tom Ying wrote on the back of the meal tickets raises more questions than it answers. The card are oriented the way Tom would written on them, vertically. Black Range Musuem

 These tickets give us some pieces in the puzzle of the past, but, as usual in historical research, they point us to gaps we didn’t even know existed. Not only do we not know who the Lake Valley ironmonger was or who Tom called “happy grove,” but we don’t really know Ying Seng himself. Some in Hillsboro still remember him from their childhoods. He was an old man who sat outside his restaurant and gave kids candy. He died in 1959, and was buried up in the cemetery. His stone had no dates. Now there is a bronze plate with the dates 1849—1959, which has been covered by another plate with the dates 1866—1959. The Mormon Church’s genealogical records has Tom listed with a birth year and place as 1850 in Hillsboro, NM. I’m sure Tom himself did not know his birth year in Christian numerical form since he would have had to memorize all the Chinese names of years in proper sequence and count back to his birth year’s name to calculate the Christian year. Regardless, Tom he must have come to this country before the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act which banned Chinese from immigrating to the U.S. from 1882 until the Act’s repeal during WWII. 

Since he never married, it seems likely that he left a family in China, and the Exclusion Act doomed him, like thousands of other unmarried Chinese men in the U.S., to a solitary and lonely life.  

– Max Yeh

Max Yeh is a retired writer and professor of Comparative Literature and has lived in Hillsboro since 1989. Yeh immigrated to the U.S. shortly after the repeal of the Exclusion Act. Numerous Chinese men labored in the mines around Hillsboro, and their nameless faces were captured by Kingston photographer, J.C. Burge.

Picture History

Western Sierra County was sparsely populated, permanent settlements non-existent prior to 1877. With the discovery of precious metals at present-day Hillsboro, prospectors streamed to the area. Tents transformed to adobe abodes, and then frame and brick. 

The communities of Hillsboro, Kingston, and Lake Valley own a distinction. Almost from their start, professional and hobby photographers were on hand documenting on glass-plate negatives the people that made their living in these mining towns.

In an obscure 1973 publication, Photographers of the New Mexico Territory, the former curator of photography at the Museum of  New Mexico, Richard Rudisill, painstaking documented who took photos in the Territory from 1854 to 1912, when and where. It's a wonderful resource.

Photographers Addis and Allison passed through the area and snapped a few images, one of which is at the Geronimo Springs Museum in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

J.C. Burge was a prodigious professional photographer. He set up shop in Kingston and took a great many images of people in his studio.  He also carried his camera outside the studio. His Kingston and Hillsboro street scenes have shown up in magazine articles and various archives. Burge documented the U.S. Cavalry and Infantry at Camp Hillsboro/Camp Boyd in 1885-86 during the Ulzana and Geronimo campaigns.

The Panic of 1893 sent silver prices south and that sent Kingston residents packing. The economic depression that lasted about five years caused the essential abandonment of Kingston, and Burge divested his business to a Hillsboro newcomer, George Tambling Miller of Minnesota. Miller built a home next to the Union Church in Hillsboro from gold slag blocks, and from the wood of the former Burge studio in Kingston, so says an 1894 contract archived at the Geronimo Springs Museum. Miller instructs a carpenter in writing to use Burge's wood.

Arguably, some of the most beautiful and well composed images of western Sierra County were taken by the German immigrant, Henry Schmidt. He lived and worked from a time in Lake Valley before settling in Chloride. He documented a vibrant Lake Valley that is today a bare husk of what was.

 

Were it not for these five men, there would be a huge vacancy of what we know about the area around Hillsboro.  Were in not for Rudisill, there would be a large void in the literature. --Craig Springer

Under the Patina of Time (or This Day in History -- March 3, 1884)

Hillsboro businessman and town pioneer, Nicholas Galles, then serving in the Territorial House of Representatives for Dona Ana County, introduced a bill on this day in 1884, to create Sierra County. Galles succeeded, but it took a month of negotiations to see it through to become law.

The unlabeled Sierra de los Caballos straddle the Sierra-Dona Ana county line. Sierra County eventually came to encompass the land area to the east, well beyond the San Andreas Mountains. Google Maps

So what's in a name?  A great deal, when you scratch under the patina of time. "Sierra" is Spanish for "saw," as in a serrated saw blade. And it means "mountain," as in a serrated ridge line. It has been repeated in print many times over that Sierra County was named after the "Sierra de los Caballos," a minor range above the Rio Grande on the southern county line. 

The Caballos seem an unlikely source of inspiration, given that most of the population of newest New Mexico county was concentrated in its western part -- in the shadows of the massive Black Range and Mimbres Mountains. The author of The Place Names of New Mexico, Robert Julyan, seems to agree.

The political force that created Sierra County was seated at the eventual county seat, Hillsboro. In Hillsboro, the Sierra de los Caballos are well out of sight, and were perhaps out of mind when Galles authored a bill to create Sierra County. The Black Range figured into the daily lives of the miners and stockmen and business people of western Sierra County in 1884. --Craig Springer