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Growing up in historic Silver City, New Mexico
with Billy the Kid, Geronimo, and Roy Rogers

An old cover takes me home — Part 2

The cover which brings these memories back to me (see an enlarged image) is a stamped envelope (also known as postal stationery) with an embossed oval one-cent blue stamp showing Benjamin Franklin in left-facing profile.

The Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps lists two varieties of this cover, which was issued in 1887-94: Scott U294 is printed on white paper, and U296 on amber paper. My guess is that it's the variety on white paper, Scott U294, simply suffering the ravages of being well over a century old. These envelopes were printed by the Plimpton Manufacturing Co. and Morgan Envelope Co. of Hartford, Conn., and by James Purcell, Holyoke, Mass. Their value is minimal.

The cover is "upfranked" (collector talk for additional postage) with Scott #222, the attractive four-cent dark-brown value from 1890-93 definitive issue, picturing President Abraham Lincoln. A used copy of the Lincoln stamp has a catalogue value of about $3; on cover, it's worth about $10. Eleven face-different stamps comprise the entire set of stamps, which was the last definitive issue printed by the American Bank Note Company; in 1894, the printing of U.S. postage stamps was taken over by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C.

Five cents total postage was probably more than double the amount that was required: From April 1, 1879, through June 30, 1887, the US letter rate to Mexico had been five cents per 1/2 ounce, but on July 1, 1887, it was lowered to two cents per ounce to match the US domestic letter rate. The letter could have been overweight, or the sender (or the post office) might not have had a one-cent stamp available.

The Lincoln stamp is tied to the cover with a Silver City CDS cancellation. The date is unclear, but based on the evidence provided by backstamps it is probably February 15, 1895. A segmented cork cancel effectively "kills" the Lincoln stamp (and also ties it to the cover), and is also used to cancel the embossed stamp.

The Azure Mining Company addressed the letter to "Señor E. Rolland [or perhaps Rosland –the writing is unclear], Ciudad de México, México."

At the time, Silver City was connected to the rest of the world by the Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad. The cover was undoubtedly was carried by train from Silver City to Mexico City, via Deming and Rincon, New Mexico; El Paso, Texas, and El Paso del Norte, Mexico (In English, "The Pass to the North," and the present-day Juarez, across the Rio Grande River from El Paso.) The map AT&SF map below shows the route:

The back of the cover (shown at the left, below) was postmarked twice; collectors call such postmarks "backstamps". Both are poor "strikes" and difficult to read.

One backstamp, dated February 17, 1895, is just clear enough to make out the letters "SO DEL". Logic dictates that it must have been struck at El PaSO DEL Norte, which was the name at that time for today's city of Juarez, Mexico, across the Rio Grande River from El Paso..

The second backstamp, dated Feb. 19, 1895, also is only partially readable : "ICO D.F." must certainly be an incomplete "MEXICO D.F.", for "Mexico Districto Federal," the common Mexican term for Mexico City. A final postmark on the back reads "CARTERO #7 " — POSTMAN #7 — clearly an instruction that the letter was to be delivered by a particular letter carrier who no doubt had responsibility for a particular mail route.

The relatively short transit time — only four days — shows that Southern New Mexico, West Texas, and Northern Mexico had well-developed, efficient railway systems at that time.

This type of cover it not rare, but it is possible that it is the only one from the Azure Mining Company to have survived. Silver City, in 1895, was a busy but small and isolated mining town, and can't have generated large amounts of mail. Nevertheless, it apparently loomed large in world economy.

A Dutch Schoolatlas published in 1908 includes only one map of the United States, and no maps at all of individual states, but Silver City is one of only two communities shown in New Mexico (the other is Santa Fe). Today, Silver City is still pretty much off the beaten path, although tourists are discovering it in increasing numbers: In recent years, Silver City has named one of "America's Top Ten Bargain Towns for Boomers" (55-Alive! web site), and one of "50 Best Places to Live: The Next Great Adventure Towns" (National Geographic Adventure Magazine).

A villainous gang of thieves

In 1895, when my cover was mailed, Silver City was just emerging from a long period of frontier violence. As late as 1891, a group of cutthroats called the Hall Gang terrorized ranchers with death threats and the wholesale rustling of cattle and horses. The Hall Gang was, intoned the Enterprise in 1887, "...as desperate and villainous a gang of thieves as ever infested any country." Eventually a posse was organized in the best Hollywood tradition, and after a classic chase on horseback brought the Hall Gang to justice.

Silver City, as it appeared in 1908, was probably not a lot different than it had been in 1895. The view is to the north in this postcard, made for Blackwell's Bookstore; the view does not show the downtown business district, to the right.

Postcard from Bob Ingraham's collection

Five New York businessmen opened the Azure Mining Company in 1891. One might assume that it was a copper mine, for copper has long been the economic mainstay of the area, and copper ore is frequently veined with lovely azure colors. The Azure Mining Company, however, produced turquoise. In fact, the Silver City area produced some of the best turquoise ever found on the planet. Mineral Resources of the United States, published in 1891 by the U.S. Geological Survey, comments on the Azure Mine and the excellent quality of turquoise it was producing.

The cover would have been mailed at the Silver City post office, located at the corner of Broadway and Main streets. L.A. Skelly was postmaster.

One of the main geographic features of Silver City is an arroyo known as the "Big Ditch". When Silver City was established as a permanent settlement in 1870, however, there was no Big Ditch. Instead, a street named Main Street was laid out in a straight north-south line between Bullard and Hudson streets. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Not only did Main Street follow a natural drainage path from the Pinos Altos watershed and the Continental Divide, but it was developed at a time before there were restrictions on logging and grazing in what would become the Gila National Forest, or removal of brush from surrounding hillsides for firewood. By 1895, the hills around Silver City had been largely denuded. In July of that year, just five months after the cover was posted, a flood roared down Main Street, turning it into a deep arroyo and resulting in its abandonment for wagon traffic.

Subsequent years brought other floods. In August, 1902, a wall of water tore through what was left of Main Street, ripped the fronts off some buildings, undermined others, and left behind a gaping chasm. In the next eight years, more floods would scour the gully down to bedrock, and citizens of Silver City would begin to refer not to Main Street, which no longer existed, but to the "Big Ditch".

The buildings that were still standing on the west side of what had been Main Street were repaired — and reversed. Their backs became their fronts and their alley became the new "Main Street," today called Bullard Street. Summer rains often fill it with a churning torrent of muddy water. Google Maps incorrectly shows the Big Ditch as "Main Street," which must be a surprise to tourists.

Today, in addition to being a minor tourist attraction, the Big Ditch is a veritable storehouse of artifacts. Even a casual search of the Big Ditch in its lower, sandy stretches South of Silver City, especially after a flood, will turn up a old utensils, shards of glassware and ceramic dishes, parts of tools, and even old marbles. My sister, Helen Francis, and her friend, Sam Perea, have gathered a collection of these artifacts.

A short stretch of the Big Ditch as it appears today
in downtown Silver Cityxxxx>— Bob Ingraham Photo

The Big Ditch even played a minor role in the history of the cover that started this web page. When Silver City first got rail service, in 1888, the tracks ran along Hudson Street and the terminal was located near the intersection with Pope Street, north of the downtown area. It was from that location that the cover started its journey to Mexico City. What would become the Big Ditch by 1910 required the building a bridge to reach the train station, so in 1900 it was moved to a location south of Broadway Street and east of Chihuahua Hill, where it was when the photograph below was taken. Several years later, it was replaced by a Spanish-style building. The seven men in the photo are NOT thought to be the Magnificent Seven.