About Old West Country
Welcome to Old West Country, a region home to many old tales that still get spun to this day. Here are just a few:
- Billy the Kid was a kid for a spell in Silver City;
- The 13th century Mogollón Indians carved cliffside dwellings into the rock of the Gila Mountains (now called Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument);
- Those same mountains later claimed the lives of many legendary frontier men and in 1924 were designated by Congress as the first wilderness area in the country;
- La Mesilla is where Confederate soldiers raised a flag calling it the capital of both New Mexico and Arizona;
- More gold mining towns than you can count went boom and bust here (check out Mogollón, Kelly, Kingston, and Chloride) and
- It's said that you can still feel the ghosts of a time past in towns like Shakespeare and Steins.
Find out more about our millions of acres of solitude, and our thriving cultures, cities and businesses. Plan your next family vacation to New Mexico's Old West Country, and create a few legends of your own!
Photo courtesy National Park Service
