In the spring of 1866, after Civil War service with the Union Army, Colonel John S. Hutchason discovered promising lead, zinc and silver ore deposits amid west-central New Mexico’s Magdalena Mountains. “Old Hutch,” as he came to be known, staked claim to the Juanita and Graphic mines and sold a third claim to friend Patrick H. Kelley.
When Kelley registered his claim, a clerical misspelling recorded it as the Kelly Mine. He also owned a sawmill, which left little time for him to focus on mining. In the early 1870s, when Kelley failed to do the required annual assessment, Hutchason jumped the claim.
In those early years miners had to smelt ore in adobe or brick kilns before transporting the metal—a laborious and inefficient process. Thus Hutchason sold the Graphic and Kelly mines in the mid-1870s, the latter ultimately passing to Gustav Billing for $40,000.
By the end of the decade other prospectors drawn to the district had established a settlement they named Kelly after the most prosperous mine. Opening its post office in 1883, the little town grew to include several stores, two banks, three churches and the inevitable saloons. Two schools educated the children, while a movie house provided a modicum of entertainment. Two hotels offered rooms, some in shifts to accommodate miners. During its turn-of-the-century peak Kelly boasted close to 3,000 residents.
In 1882–83 Billing, ever the entrepreneur, constructed a smelter near Socorro, about 25 miles east of the mines at Kelly. That year an edition of the Socorro Bullion noted, “Two hundred wagons are engaged in hauling ore from Kelly mine to the Billing smelter.”
In early 1885 the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad completed a spur line to the new town of Magdalena, three miles north of the district, and began shipping out both ore and livestock from local ranches. Due to the steep grade, pack mules carried the ore from the mines to Magdalena until completion of a spur to Kelly.
One sad local story concerned 18-yearold Annie Bishop, eldest daughter of freighter William Smith and Brunswick Hotel proprietor Helen Smith. One day Annie, who was married to Benjamin Bishop and had a young son of that same name, inexplicably broke into a local physician’s cabin and stole articles belonging to the doctor and his wife. Residents thought a couple of town toughs were to blame, until Annie appeared wearing one of the stolen garments. Annie withered under their accusations, and before a court could levy charges, she committed suicide with a shotgun on August 12, 1887. Her husband later killed himself at another mining camp, while their son, who later worked the mines, died of lung disease in Arizona.
In the search for lead, zinc and silver, the mine operations deposited mounds of tailings about the district. Among the discards was a strange, bluish-green rock that intrigued Socorro mining engineer T. Cory Brown around the turn of the 19th century. The sample he sent away for testing proved to be a zinc carbonate called smithsonite, used at the time for pigments in paints and much prized by collectors for its beauty. Brown and partner J.B. Fitch promptly leased the Graphic for its tailings.
In 1904 Brown and Fitch sold the Graphic to the Sherwin Williams Co., and Billing sold the Kelly to the TriBullion Mining and Smelting Co. Mining continued until the Great Depression. By 1931 most of the smithsonite had been extracted, the supply depleting as rapidly as demand for it decreased. Folks began to move away, and by 1945 the dwindling population forced closure of the post office.
Departing residents dismantled many of the buildings in Kelly, using the materials to rebuild in Magdalena, Socorro and nearby camps. Only St. John the Baptist Catholic Church remains intact. The headframe Billing had ordered from New York’s Carnegie Steel Works back in 1906 stands as the lone sentinel of the towns’ mining heyday. It straddles a vertical shaft that plunges more than 1,000 feet. Approach with care, as all that prevents anyone from plummeting to his death is some loosely strung wire around the hole. Belowground are some 30 miles of tunnels. Those wishing to visit the district can obtain a free pass at the rock shop in Magdalena en route to Kelly. Although railroad crews long ago took up the tracks laid to haul the ore, the old cattle and sheep pens remain, speaking to Kelly’s past as a livestock transshipment point.
Originally published in the August 2014 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.
