Exploitation of mineral resources has always played a key role in the history of New Mexico. In fact, the Spanish gave this remote province its name hoping that it would produce mineral wealth equiv-alent to that of Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca in 1535 reported seeing within the state "many signs of gold, antimony, iron, copper, and other metals." Fray Marcos de Niza reported that this was "a land rich in gold, silver, and other wealth." Hope of finding precious metals such as these motivated the Coronado expedition, as well as the conquest of Don Juan de Oñate.

There was undoubtedly some mining in the eighteenth century, but actual mineral exploitation began in 1804 in the copper deposits of Santa Rita in the southwestern Part of the state. Santa Rita remained active in the Mexican era, but was not worked extensively until the Apaches were subdued in the 1870’s and the railroads arrived in the 1880’s. Although it lacks the glamour of gold and silver, mined copper has been of much greater value than the other two. As the map indicates, copper is found in many different areas of the state, but 90 per cent of the state’s production still comes from Grant County.

Gold mining began in 1828 in the Ortiz Mountains between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and continued through the rest of the Mexican period. In the post—Civil War period a series of gold mining "booms" occurred in various parts of the state, especially Elizabethtown. Much gold was mined in the nineteenth century, but there has been a steady decline in recent years, so much so that the industry is no longer prominent. Because of lack of water for mining, gold mining in New Mexico awaits the perfection of a dry extraction method.

Silver mining has been confined mainly to the southwestern portion of the state. Like gold mining, it began to decline in importance in 1905, and today production is negligible.

Lead and zinc are usually found in the same areas as copper and are also mined mainly in the southwestern part of the state. Their peak year was 1952, when total production was valued at $19,185,000. Since that year the value has declined. Iron ore is found in limited quantities within the state but has never been of significant value.

The newest addition to the New Mexico family of minerals is uranium. Its value was unknown only a few years ago, but today is very high. Uranium was accidently discovered by a Navaho in the spring of 1950 near Grants, and production is concentrated in this area, although there are widely scattered de-posits throughout the state. New Mexico led the nation in production in 1964.

Demand for manganese, the ferroalloy so valuable in steelmaking, has increased since World War II, because the Cold War has interfered with over-seas sources.

Molybdenum, another ferroalloy, has also be-come more valuable in recent years. The richest deposits arc found near Questa in the Red River area. In the past, most of molybdenum was mined in mineral-rich Grant County as a by-product of copper, and in scattered areas of the state.

The real giant of the New Mexico mineral industry is petroleum. Today it brings in more than one-half the revenue of all the state’s mineral production. The original drilling area was the Permian Basin in the southeastern corner of the state. Since World War II the San Juan Basin in the north-western corner has also become an important source of petroleum.

Natural gas is another valuable mineral resource. In the Permian Basin it is found as a by-product of petroleum, but the field in the San Juan Basin has distinct gas wells extracting dry gas. As has been true of petroleum, natural gas can be carried by pipelines to population centers. Helium gas is produced at Des Moines and Bueyeros, and in the Estancia Valley.

Coal mining in New Mexico has been vital during the past century. In a state where many regions are short of wood for fuel, it can be assumed that coal was used, but records have not been kept of the usage of so common an item. The army used coal during the Civil War, and even Texas ranchers were forced to bring in wagonloads of coal for fuel.

The coming of the railroads between 1879 and 1882 put coal production on a firm footing. The first area opened was in Colfax County near Raton, and this district traditionally led the state in production. In 1882 the railroad reached Gallup, and existing mines in the neighborhood were promptly put into production to supply most of the coal used by locomotives en route to California.

When coal mining was at its peak, the Raton field and the portion of the San Juan Basin near Gallup accounted for about 90 per cent of the state’s total coal output, although mines throughout the state were worked to supply local needs. One example, mines in Lincoln County employed 300 men to produce over 120,000 tons of coal in 1902.

At its top production in 1918 the coal industry in New Mexico produced more than 4,000,000 tons of coal per year from sixty-one mines and employed 5,000 workers. But the dieselization of the railroads and use of oil and gas for heating led to a steady decline of the coal industry in New Mexico. This downturn, however, has been reversed in recent years, and in 1964 total production was at 94 per cent of the 1918 level. Most of the coal mined has been bituminous or subbituminous, although some anthracite has come from the Cerrillos field near Madrid.

Production of potash in New Mexico is of comparatively recent origin and is a growing mining activity instead of a declining one. At times the rate of growth has been nothing short of spectacular. Since approximately 85 per cent of the nation’s potash comes from a small area near Carlsbad, its contribution to the state’s economy is large. Potash is used mainly for commercial fertilizers, and until World War I the American supply came from Germany. Because of the shortage created by the war, the United States Geological Survey searched for a domestic supply. In 1925 an oil geologist accidentally discovered the deposits near Carlsbad. These deposits lie in horizontal beds 4 to 10 feet thick at a depth below the surface varying from 500 to 3,800 feet. Potash lies in seams, and is mined in much the same way as coal.

Scattered throughout New Mexico are many deposits of minerals that have been barely touched, if at all. They do, however, have a potential for future exploitation.

Credit: Historical Atlas of New Mexico by Warren A. Beck and Ynez D. Haase.

Copyright 1969 by the University of Oklahoma Press.