Silver City, Pinos Altos and Mogollon Railroad

Silver City, Pinos Altos and Mogollon Railroad (SC,PA&M) was a 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge railway serving copper mines along the Continental Divide in the mountains of southwestern New Mexico. The communities of Silver City and Pinos Altos developed as 19th century miners recovered easily extracted gold and silver from ore deposits of the area. Standard-gauge Santa Fe Railroad reached Silver City in 1886, and SC,PA&M was incorporated 24 August 1889 to build a railway north to Mogollon, New Mexico. Construction was limited to 5 miles (8.0 km) of grading until Wisconsin-based Comanche Mining and Smelting purchased the railroad and the Pinos Altos mining claims of George Hearst in 1903 after horse-drawn ore transport became uneconomical. The Silver City smelter burned shortly after purchase, but was rebuilt with three blast furnaces and a reverberatory furnace to handle 225 tons of ore per day. Two Shay locomotives were moved to Silver City in August 1905 from the Gilpin tramway of Gilpin County, Colorado. The railroad was built through iron and limestone mines on Chloride Flat west of Silver City. The limestone was used as a flux for smelting the copper ore.

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