To appreciate Hatchita, a small town of about 30 people at the entrance to the bootheel of southwestern New Mexico, you must first appreciate the landscape that surrounds it. The two are entwined, one dependent on the other, like the towering yuccas that populate this land and the delicate yucca moths that pollinate them. Here is New Mexico in all its subtle beauty. Olive-green mesquite bushes, yucca blossoms the color of white smoke, brushy broomweed plants, and the occasional wildflower—all leaning slightly sideways from the steady nudge of the westerly wind, scattered across a valley whose reach is only halted by the Mexican border. To the south rise the Big Hatchet Mountains, crooked and imposing; to the west, the Little Hatchet, from which the town of Hachita derived its name...
There are more houses in Hachita today than people, and to understand why requires understanding the origins of Hachita, which in turn requires a trip out to the Little Hatchet Mountains.
Scattered among the low foothills are the sun-baked ruins of an old mining town. This was the first location to be called Hachita, sometime in the 1870s as part of the Eureka mining district. Miners here dropped into the earth and returned with silver, copper, and turquoise. An old headframe still stands, as do the walls of hardscrabble buildings, including a main house, a dance hall, and two powder magazines, double-walled to force an explosion to blow upward out the roof.
When the railroad arrived in the valley around 1901, bringing the possibilities of new economies, residents of Hachita built houses closer to the rails. This became “New Hachita,” while the mining camp was referred to as “Old Hachita.” As mining profits declined over the subsequent years, only the hardiest souls remained in the mountains—one old-timer lived here until the 1970s.
New Hachita did well enough to drop the “New.” A grade school and high school opened, and a two-story hotel, a giant mercantile store, and other businesses arose along Railroad Avenue, now Highway 9. (Today the yuccas follow suit, crowding against the highway as if waiting for the light to change.)
Proximity to the railroad and shipping pens made Hachita an important headquarters for area ranches. Those ranches are still around: the Hatchet Ranch, the Hurt Ranch, the Diamond A.
Lawrence Hurt is one of the owners of Hurt Cattle Company. He invites me to view a roundup, something I’ve not seen before. I arrive early that morning at a corral on his ranch; I know I’m in the right place when I see the pickup trucks, their windshields reflecting the spinning fan of the Aermotor windmill by the water tank. As the morning sun lifts itself over the Big Hatchet Mountains and the last vestiges of the night disappear in a red glow on the western horizon, Lawrence and the other men ride off on their horses into the rugged, raging beauty of the desert at dawn.
In the distance, I watch as a blue and white object maneuvers back and forth in the sky, gliding, then angling right, then left again: a Robinson R22 Beta II helicopter.
Hank Hays is at the controls. Hank has been working at the Hurt Ranch for 16 years now as, in the words of his tongue-in-cheek business card, a “Bovine Pursuit Specialist.” Hank previously flew helicopters in the US Border Patrol and cowboyed in his youth, so he came into this job familiar with both the terrain and the duties. During spring and fall roundups, he herds cattle from above—careful not to separate the calves from their mothers—letting them move safely to the corral. The helicopter saves time and money. What once took two dozen men three days can now be done by only a few in a matter of hours.
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