Treasure & Field Research
Research leads for prospectors, relic hunters, genealogists, and historians of the lost. Every entry on this site is anchored to a primary source — citations down to the chunk and page. Below are the hubs that field researchers actually need.
- Federal land (BLM, USFS, NPS) is regulated under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA, 16 USC 470aa). Disturbing any artifact >100 years old is a federal felony. That includes "just a button" or "just a horseshoe nail."
- Active mining claims are private property under federal law. The fact that a claim is on BLM land does not make it public to walk.
- New Mexico burial sites — including unmarked graves at abandoned camps — are protected under the New Mexico Cultural Properties Act. Do not dig.
- Photograph, do not collect. Every artifact removed erases context for the next researcher (and likely violates one of the laws above).
- Verify current land status with the county clerk and the BLM LR2000 database beforeany visit. The status notes on individual entries are research aids, not legal advice.
Research hubs
Locations historical sources attest to but whose modern coordinates are unknown or disputed. The "where on earth did that go?" pile.
Abandoned towns and camps whose footprints can still be located today — distinct from lost places.
Mines, mining claims, mills, and smelters of the Pinos Altos, Silver City, Central, Lordsburg, Steeple Rock, and Burro Mountains districts.
The legal and geological parent containers for the mines. Each district has its ore-body story, claim-law history, and best-known operators.
Stagecoach lines, swing stations, home stations. The freight and travel corridors that linked Silver City to the rest of the territory.
Wagon roads, freight trails, military roads — the physical infrastructure that moved ore, soldiers, and supplies.
Bullard Street rows, camp bars, stage-stop taverns — the third places of the working camps and towns.
Active and abandoned cemeteries — the most-cited single source for working back to family and operating-period history.
Established and discontinued post offices — the postal record is the most reliable single dataset for fixing a settlement’s operating dates.
Adjacent surfaces
- Timeline — chronological view of the whole corpus; useful for fixing operating periods.
- Map — geographic view with the time-machine slider (1840–1945).
- Sources — every primary source in the corpus. Newspapers are the highest-value single category for treasure research.
- Ask the archive— natural-language Q&A with strict citation discipline. Use it to probe before a field trip.