Hagan is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in
Sandoval County
Sandoval County () is a county located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 148,834, making it the fourth-most populous county in New Mexico. The county seat is Bernalillo.
Sandoval County is part of th ...
,
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, about southeast of
San Felipe Pueblo.
History
In 1902 the New Mexico Fuel and Iron Company was established to develop coal mines in the locality. The name "Hagan" was chosen for the site in 1904, named after a local official of the
AT&SF
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996.
The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at variou ...
Railroad, no doubt to encourage the extension of a railroad spur to serve the mines. Initially, coal was hauled by wagon to the railroad main line at San Felipe. Work on the spur was begun in 1908 but was suspended within months, stalling development of the community of about 60 residents for a decade.
In 1919 a "gentleman entrepreneur",
Jean Justin DePraslin of
New Orleans
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
, convinced investors to put up nearly $450,000 to develop the Hagan Coal Mine, including housing, mine buildings and a power plant. A further $300,000 was raised for a new railroad, the
Rio Grande Eastern, and the line was completed in May 1924. As well as the coal, the railroad hauled brick and tile from a brick factory adjacent to the ruins of
Tonque Pueblo, a few miles north of the town.
DePraslin developed Hagan as an ambitiously planned
company town
A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...
intended for 500 residents. Over 100
adobe
Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...
structures were built by ''adobero'' Abenicio Salazar of
Bernalillo with a team of 100 laborers and 60 masons over a period of three years, in the
Pueblo Revival style which was popular at the time. The town was well supplied with electricity and running water. Water was piped from a spring away, to a reservoir above the town. The general store was a two-story structure which housed a bank, post office, barber shop and pool hall as well as the general mercantile. An eight-grade school was set up to serve 70 pupils.
The town grew from 1924 to 1930 and the population peaked at about 200 people, mostly Italian and Slavic miners from the coalfields of
Raton and
Dawson, and local
Hispanos
The Hispanos of New Mexico, also known as New Mexican Hispanics or Nuevomexicanos, are Hispanic residents originating in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, today the US state of New Mexico (''Nuevo México''), southern Color ...
from
Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
and
Los Cerrillos. But in the early 1930s the miners hit a layer of
shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...
which soon widened, eventually choking off coal production. By 1933 the railroad, never profitable, ceased operation and was dismantled, and in 1939 the Hagan Mine closed down.
Present day
Only the foundations and a few brick walls of the power plant, general store, reservoir, and a few smaller buildings remain. The site is visible from Indian Service Road 844/Madera Road which follows the railroad grade from San Felipe, but the ruins are on private land owned by the Diamond Tail Ranch and are usually not open to the public except by occasional organized tours.
Notes
References
* Harris, L.G. & Porter, P. ''Ghost towns alive: trips to New Mexico's past''. University of New Mexico Press, 2003.
* Myrick, D. "The Rio Grande Eastern Railway Corporation." In: ''New Mexico’s Railroads: A Historical Survey''. University of New Mexico Press, 1990.
{{Sandoval County, New Mexico
Ghost towns in New Mexico