Chloride
A historic settlement in Chloride, New Mexico, Chloride is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Partially inhabited former silver-mining camp. It sits in the archive under ghost towns. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Chloride haunted?
No claims are filed here — the record keeps this place for its documented history, not for a haunting on file.
The record — long form
Chloride, New Mexico, sits in the foothills of the Black Range in what is now Sierra County, and it is not to be confused with the Arizona town of the same name — the research notes insist on it. Its founder was Harry Pye, an English prospector who found silver-bearing float here around the turn of the 1880s. The single tourism source gives him two chronologies — prospecting in the late 1870s and returning in 1879, or a discovery in 1879 and a return in 1881 — and the file declines to choose.
Pye did not live to enjoy his town. During the Apache wars that still burned through the territory — Victorio's campaign was fresh — he was killed in an encounter that the local account fixes on one detail: his pistol jammed. The camp that carried his find went on without him, booming to roughly three thousand people, nine saloons, and its own newspaper, the Black Range.
Killed by the treasury, not the Apache
What finished Chloride was macroeconomic. The panic of 1893 and the demonetization of silver collapsed the metal's price by most accounts to a tenth of its former value, and a silver camp had no second act. The town emptied almost as fast as it had filled.
What remains is a curated remnant: about a dozen residents, original buildings including the Pioneer Store operating as a museum, and — in a detail the file keeps because it is perfectly emblematic — Harry Pye's own cabin, rentable by the night. The man who found the silver never cashed in; the town named for chloride ore now sells his bed.
Documented history
The 1893 silver panic undermined mining; original buildings survive, including the Pioneer Store museum. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The press recorded it; the detail stands as reported history. Sources including 'Chloride' carry the record. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.
Media reportedNew Mexico Tourism Department
Sources on file
- 01ChlorideNew Mexico Tourism Department · tourism · A3
Field notes & open questions
Same tourism page gives conflicting Harry Pye chronology: prospecting in late 1870s and return in 1879 versus discovery in 1879 and return in 1881. No exact founding year chosen. Distinct from Chloride, Arizona.