A popular southwestern New Mexico ghost town, struck by the tragic and mysterious shooting death of its longtime owner, is reopening to the public after being closed nearly a year. Steins Railroad Ghost Town will formally reopen May 11, said Melissa Lamoree, granddaughter of the late Larry Link. Lamoree, 29, said the family has been raising money and working to restore the old western town near the Arizona border to its original state. They want to keep it running because it reminds them of happier times, she said. “My grandfather put so much work into this ghost town,” Lamoree said. “Instead of focusing on how he died, we wanted to remember the happy moments that this place brought him and share that with everyone.” Larry Link bought Steins in 1988 with his wife, Linda, and gave private tours. He was shot and killed last June at age 68, in what state police believe may have been a robbery gone wrong. Police said a semi-trailer used for storage on the property appeared to have been broken into, with items from inside strewn on the ground. Steins, once populated with 1,300 people, was largely abandoned by the mid-1940s after the railroad stopped delivering water. It is about 80 miles north of Mexico in New Mexico’s Hidalgo County. Steins is among many ghost towns, managed publically and privately, that dot the southern New Mexico landscape. The town was once a bustling mining and railroad town, which survived on water freighted in by the Southern Pacific and had competing bordellos. Before he bought the ghost town, Larry Link ran a rattlesnake farm and had worked as a butcher and in the grocery business in Arizona, family said...
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