URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/venue/travel/tourism/heritage_whiteoaks.htm

July 26, 1998
'Liveliest Town in the Territory'
By James Abarr Of the Journal     WHITE OAKS — When John Baxter drifted into the Middle Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico in the spring of 1879, he was just another of the legion of prospectors who roamed the frontier West looking for that illusive bonanza.
    He was a fugitive from the gold fields of California, where he had arrived too late to share in the wealth. In the saloons of Socorro and San Antonio, however, he heard tales about gold to be found on the flanks of a prominent mountain across the rugged desert to the east.
    Pooling his meager resources with Jack Winters, a saloon companion who shared his dream of quick riches, Baxter and his newfound friend packed eastward across the tortured landscape of the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death). It was a hot and waterless trek of nearly 100 miles, but in a dry wash at the foot of the mountain that now bears his name, Baxter made a modest strike.
    It was nothing spectacular. However, by packing the placer gravel two miles east from the wash to a spring surrounded by a thick stand of white oak trees, the two men washed out about $120 worth of gold a week. For 1879, it wasn't a bad payday.
    From this meager beginning, White Oaks, "the liveliest town in the territory," blossomed in the shadow of Baxter Mountain. The town took its name from the trees surrounding the nearby spring, and within 10 years, it grew to a population of 2,500 souls. The stranger

    Before White Oaks emerged as one of the best-known mining towns on the New Mexico frontier, however, there was the stranger.
    One day, he drifted into the camp of Baxter and Winters, but all they ever learned about him was that he called himself Wilson. He was told he could prospect in the area on the premise that he share in any discovery.
    A short time later, Wilson scrambled up on the lower slopes of the mountain and sat beside a rock outcropping to eat his lunch. While idly chipping away at the rock, he exposed a vein of gold ore. It was the birth of what would become the Homestake Mine, one of the largest in the region.
    Later, there were those who said Wilson was not a prospector at all, but a fugitive who had escaped from jail in El Paso. As the story goes, he had scaled the mountain, not to eat lunch, but to keep an eye out for any pursuing posse.
    It may well have been that Wilson was one step ahead of the law, because it wasn't long before he sold his share in his discovery to Baxter and left the camp. Accounts differ, but one says Wilson took $40 in cash, a pony and a bottle of whiskey; another says he accepted even less.
    Whatever the selling price, Wilson, for a pittance, traded his interest in a mine that in years to come would yield a fortune in gold. In the end, however, it didn't matter. A few weeks later, he was killed by Apaches.
    Wilson's strike marked the beginning of the flood. As word spread, prospectors flocked to the area and spread out in the dry washes and across the slopes of Baxter Mountain.
    Within 18 months, a dozen gold mines were operating — the North and South Homestake, the Smuggler, Little Nell, the Black Prince, White Swan and Old Abe, the richest of them all. It would yield more than $3million in gold by the turn of the century. A town is born

    In the tree-dotted valley at the foot of the mountain, the wave of newcomers spanked White Oaks into life in August 1879. There was Tent Town, Shanty Town and Hogtown. Eight saloons quickly sprang up, where, as one historian proclaimed:
    "Life burned feverish and noisy from dusk until dawn; where, for a price, a man could have his choice of any card game, any bottle or any woman in the house."
    As the town grew, White Oaks Avenue, the main street, was laid out 100 feet wide and a half-mile long. By the early 1880s, it was lined with false-front stores blended with buildings of brick and stone behind rows of hitching rails. Before long, it was paralleled by other streets with connecting side avenues.
    Wagons loaded with ore and lumber pulled by powerful teams of horses, gigs, buggies and buckboards stirred the dirt streets into clouds of dust. When it rained, they were mired in a sea of mud.
    From the surrounding hills, two imposing structures loomed over White Oaks — a two-story brick schoolhouse and Hoyle's Castle, a two-story Victorian home with gables and sharply-pitched roof. The stately dwelling became a town legend.
    Stagecoach lines linked the community to Fort Stanton, 30 miles to the southeast, and to Socorro, 80 miles to the west.
    Although wild and boisterous in the beginning, White Oaks soon shed its rowdy spirit. This probably stemmed from the influx of a caliber of residents unusual for a frontier mining town.
    In his "History of Lincoln County," author Maurice Fulton wrote:
    "The people of White Oaks mostly came from an Eastern environment that had made them sensible and law-abiding. Saloons, gambling halls and other forms of recreation and stimulation they would tolerate, but they did not intend to let White Oaks become a rendezvous for murderers, cattle and horse thieves."
    C.L. Sonnichsen, author and longtime history professor at the University of Texas, El Paso, noted:
    "There were violent episodes, of course, particularly in the early years, but White Oaks was no Sodom. The forces of good and evil never battled it out in the saloons and streets. Gamblers and good-time girls never cut much of a figure. It was, in truth, a pretty civilized place."
    White Oaks served early notice that it would not cotton to the lawless breed.
    In November 1880, William Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, and several companions rode into town driving a string of stolen horses. When Billy tried to sell them — ignoring the formality of a bill of sale or other proof of ownership — he was chased out of town.
    Several days later, The Kid brazenly returned to White Oaks, but this time a group of citizens responded with gunfire, and Bonney fled with a sheriff's posse in pursuit. They failed to snare the young outlaw, but White Oaks citizens had made it clear that The Kid was unwelcome. 'Embyronic days'

    In his memoirs, Morris B. Parker, a mining engineer who grew up in White Oaks in the 1880s, recorded:
    "These were the embyronic days of White Oaks, and they were full of fun, tragedy and disappointment — local history in the making. ... The mixed character and culture of the residents was evident. They ranged from ignorant nomads — cowboys and prospectors — to college graduates. They included good men and bad, gold-hungry adventurers and people who just came to look around."
    Through the decade of the 1880s, White Oaks grew and prospered. The mines expanded and flourished, and so did the town. Four churches, two banks, a sawmill, livery stables, hardware and clothing stores joined more than 50 established businesses. There also were two hotels — the Ozone and the Carrizo — and a large community center was built to accommodate theatrical plays, meetings of literary clubs and other social events.
    Madam Varnish's Little Casino was the reigning saloon in town, although it had stiff competition from its chief rival, the Star Saloon and Opera House.
    In the midst of all the expansion and growth, however, nothing captured the imagination of White Oaks residents as much as the imposing structure of Hoyle's Castle, perched on its hill. Enduring legends surround the large and elegant Victorian-style home, which seemed sharply out of place in frontier New Mexico.
    Its builder was Watson Hoyle, a supervisor and part owner of the Old Abe mine. The lavish home was constructed of brick and stone with stained-glass windows, hand-carved pine and redwood paneling.
    One legend has it that Hoyle built the house for his bride-to-be. When she arrived in White Oaks from her home in the East, she found the change was more than she could tolerate. She refused to live on a raw frontier and promptly bid Hoyle adieu and returned East.
    Whereupon Hoyle, the legend recounts, walked to the main shaft of the Old Abe, more than 1,000 feet deep, and leaped to his death.
    Another legend offers the same chain of events except for the ending. This account maintains that when his prospective bride left, Hoyle refused to live in the house and sold it.
    Morris Parker, who knew Hoyle well when he lived in White Oaks, discounts the legends as romantic nonsense. In his memoirs, Parker wrote:
    "Watt Hoyle fell into temptation as a result of his share in the Old Abe. He decided to build a 'superior' residence — a two-story, the finest in town. The interior was never finished. Before long, it was dubbed 'Hoyle's Folly.'''
    Dispensing with claims that the house was never lived in, Parker noted that Hoyle lived there for several years with his brother, Will, and Will's wife. In the 1890s, Hoyle reportedly sold the home and moved to Denver.
    Hoyle, however, wasn't the only White Oaks resident who liked stately houses. As Parker wrote: "A score of two-story homes, less pretentious, went up. They were a credit to a town anywhere." Disaster strikes

    In a portent, perhaps, of the troubled years ahead, a disastrous fire hit the South Homestake Mine in December 1891. Two miners were killed.
    Two years later, in 1893, the explosion of a kerosene lamp ignited a costly blaze in the Old Abe, which left nine miners dead. It took two days and three nights to overcome the blaze.
    As Parker remembered the disaster: "The townspeople, both men and women, fought against terrible odds. They worked in relays, battling heavy smoke, flames and gases. Teams of men worked without stopping, even to eat or sleep. ... All were friends and relatives of the unfortunate victims."
    By the late 1890s, it was clear that "the liveliest town in the territory" was dying. Production in many of the mines fell off, while others simply shut down. Hard times replaced the glitter of gold, and residents began to drift away.
    Despite these setbacks, White Oaks pinned its hopes of a return to better days on the coming of the railroad. Unfortunately, this also failed when the town's leading businessmen, led by attorney and entrepreneur John Hewitt, played their cards too close to the vest.
    Charles B. Eddy, one of New Mexico's most prominent early-day financiers for whom present-day Eddy County is named, wanted to extend his El Paso & Northeastern Railroad from El Paso to Santa Rosa, in eastern New Mexico. There it would link with the Southern Pacific, which was building westward. When Eddy's surveyors reported that the shortest and best route was through White Oaks, he sought to negotiate for right-of-way through the town.
    So certain were the business leaders of White Oaks that the railroad had no choice but to come pushing around Baxter Mountain, that they decided to play a high-stakes game. They sharply raised their land prices and smugly waited for the railroad to accept their terms.
    Eddy, however, was not a man to be pushed to the wall — he took his project elsewhere. It was a fatal blow to White Oaks.
    Eddy opted to extend his railroad through the high-desert prairie, 14 miles west of White Oaks, where a new town, Carrizozo, sprang up. It soon eclipsed the community beneath Baxter Mountain.
    As Morris Parker wrote: "In 1902, the final spike was driven, but White Oaks was left off to one side, high and dry ... all because the leading citizens of the town refused to cooperate. Had they been less unreasonable, had they foreseen the results of their stubborness, Carrizozo would not exist, and White Oaks would now be a center of trade and industry." Requiem for a town

    Loss of the railroad and the closing of most of the mines signaled that once-vibrant White Oaks had passed its zenith.
    Few people now jostled their way down White Oaks Avenue. Railroad towns like Carrizozo were more lively. Many residents drifted away, and scores of abandoned buildings and homes cast long shadows of decay. Up on Baxter Mountain, a stillness settled over the abandoned and boarded-up mines and piles of rusting machinery.
    By 1910, Whites Oaks listed a mere 200 residents, who had remained in hopes that the town would experience a rebirth. It was a futile dream. In 1930, the crowning blow came when another disastrous fire closed the last of the mines — the venerable Old Abe.
    Today, a handful of residents and a few scattered structures remain to mark the shell of the "liveliest town in the territory." The boarded-up two-story Exchange Bank of White Oaks, once the pride of the town, stands forlorn and decaying on White Oaks Avenue. On a low hill to the north, the brick schoolhouse, built in 1892 at a cost of $10,000, still looks down on the town and appears solid enough to again welcome classes.
    To the south, against the backdrop of Carrizo Peak, the faded elegance of Hoyle's Castle, privately owned and fenced off, continues to dominate the skyline.
    A mile west, Cedarvale Cemetery is the resting place of many of the town's prominent pioneers — William McDonald, New Mexico's first governor after statehood; Susan McSween Barber, hailed as the "Cattle Queen of New Mexico" in the 1890s; and attorney John Hewitt, one of the major builders of White Oaks.
    To the northwest, Baxter Mountain still looms against the sky, and the wind blowing down from its slopes whispers a requiem for White Oaks, a community of faded dreams from another age.