Threat of slant mining to Mogollon Cemetery
Silver47 Exploration Corp. (formally Summa Silver) is a threat to historic Mogollon Cemetery. Their active permit CA027EM executed by the NM EMNRD enables Silver47 to slant drill for 2,000 feet. Their drill pads and work area are threateningly close to the west side of Mogollon Cemetery.
In Catron County, NM there are 24 places listed on State and National Registers. Mogollon Cemetery is a site of historical significance as it served the listed silver and gold mining towns of Mogollon and of Fannie Hill Mill and Company Town during their productive period 1887-1942. Mogollon Cemetery is nominated for listing on the National Register and awaits the designation of Historic Site.
Mogollon Cemetery is located at the end of Fannie Road 0.9 miles from Bursum Road which runs through Mogollon. It is 79 miles from the nearest incorporated town of Silver City, NM. USDA Gila National Forest now manages the land that includes Mogollon Cemetery which remains little changed since its founding towards the end of the 19th century. The Gila River Forest Reserve was established in 1899 by the General Land Office. It was renamed the Gila Forest Reserve in 1905 by the US Department of the Interior. The following year the land was transferred to the US Forest Service, and in 1907 it became a National Forest. The Gila Wilderness was created on 3rd June 1924.
Mogollon Cemetery is a 2.3-acre, unplanned cemetery of 207 burial sites. There is no formal landscaping apart from occasional irises planted on burial sites amongst pinon and juniper trees. Existing footpaths weave around trees, grave mounds, groups of graves, and family plots with fences. A barbed wire perimeter fence encloses Mogollon Cemetery with a decorative pedestrian entrance gate located at the southeasterly corner. The “Mogollon Cemetery 1890” metal gate was made by Daniel Morgan in 1998.
The earliest dated burial is a sandstone marker for John Jose who died in 1892. Gravemarkers include hand hewn wooden crosses, simple found iron or twisted wire crosses, a miner’s spike, ornate recycled tin can decorations, engraved and polished granite headstones. Some children’s graves are surrounded with a woven wire basket crib. Some burials are rock- or slag-covered mounds marked with a rock head- and foot-stone, or a cairn of rocks.
Causes of death reflect frontier life in a remote mountain mining town. Workers contracted the disease called “miner’s consumption” caused by cyanidation, often dying within a few years. There were premature births, deaths in childbirth, and deaths from tuberculosis and syphilis. Others died of dysentery caused by malnutrition. Death Certificates record numerous deaths by injury, such as “June cave-in fracturing skull and body”; “Injuries received when struck with a blackjack”; “Electrocuted while ascending shaft” “Gunshot wound of upper abdomen and lower chest, street fight”; “Septicemia of the lower jaw followed tooth extraction”; “Fell from his wagon at the Last Chance mine when the brakes failed” and the blacksmith, who died in 1915 by a blow from a hand axe. The Spanish influenza of 1918 claimed as many as 52 lives.
When walking in the Cemetery please be respectful of burial sites to avoid treading on those hard to identify.
Visit Mogollon Cemetery Archives and Mogollon Museum for further information.
https://davidthornburg.smugmug.com/Events/Celebration-of-The-Gila-and-Mogollon-Cemetery
Celebration of The Gila and Mogollon Cemetery, Cordelia Rose
Whitewater Mesa Labyrinths, 17 July 2024
Read the moving article on the cemetery on the WildEarth Guardians website, The Mogollon Cemetery: A Gila Treasure Preserved, written by Leia Barnett.
The Grant County Beat ran a similar article on 8 Sept, Mogollon Cemetery is a site of historical significance
“The thing about the Greater Gila Bioregion is it’s full of treasure. Not the kind to be plundered, let’s be clear (though plenty of international mining ventures are already on that bandwagon…), but the kind that emerges when a particular set of ingredients collide in one landscape: unparalleled biodiversity, a unique and largely untold cultural history, and a committed (and in this case wonderfully eclectic) set of local residents who believe in the value of the former.”
– LEia Barnett, New Mexico Conservation Lead, WildEarth Guardians