Hillsboro, New Mexico is a tiny town with a lot of history,
but what is interesting to me is the architectural history.
In the next few posts we will look at that,
starting off with a variety of house styles.
But first I want to give you a sense of where we are.
The above ariel photo looks west to the Black Range Mountains.
Hillsboro is located in southwest New Mexico,
between Truth or Consequences and Silver City,
along state road 152.
About 10 miles up the road is Kingston.
The highway follows Percha Creek as far as Kingston,
where it leaves the creek as it ascends Emory Pass.
Hillsboro started life, much like the nearby Kingston and Lake Valley,
as a mining town around the 1870s,
but it also became county seat of Sierra County for many years.
The above building probably started life as a commercial building
but is now most likely a home.
As many homes here,
this nicely restored house is most likely adobe.
A similar style as above, just not as fixed up.
There were probably many more frame houses at one time
but many may have rotted away or been moved as the population went down.
With the long porch this one has a nice appeal to it.
Maybe at one time this was a small shop.
Certainly the rough stone work would have originally been covered
by an adjoining building or plaster or stucco.
Another stone building in an altogether different style (cottage),
a more refined stone work,
and a much later period.
These old adobes remind me of Patagonia, Arizona,
which I covered in the post:
These blocks were made from the byproducts of smelting,
a sign of the mining history of this area.
For more on Hillsboro and the area see
Building In Hillsboro And Kingston New Mexico
under LABELS in the right side bar.
A reader left this link in the comment section for the above house:
