Trouble Down Pit

Fragments of plaster from the ceiling scatters the floor, and a CRT television blocks the doorway. It’s hard to say what parts of the mess were left when the people left or what might have been done by other visitors since that time, and it’s impossible not to wonder what happened to the people who lived here, who left behind so many things when they left.

Golden is a ghost town along ‘the Turquoise Trail’, which is the road between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Many of the towns along this road grew because of mining and railroads. When the mines dried up suddenly, or the railroads took new routes, the towns quickly diminished. Many of them have only a couple of dozen people living in them, if anyone at all. Some of the towns and buildings have been reclaimed by artists or farmers, but many are slowly falling down in the state that they were left.

The photos over the next few weeks are all taken at dawn in December at approaching 7,000 feet above sea level. The ground was covered in snow and the clear sky created a stunning gradient behind the telegraph wires, bare trees, cactuses, and, of course, abandoned buildings.

I hope you enjoy this series of photographs, feel free to leave comments here or over on the Matazone Creative Facebook page.