Silver City art and architecture

So far, we’ve been rotating between these 3 activities during our free time: walks around the Silver City downtown and residential area, exploring the Boston Hill Open Space walking and biking, and hikes outside of town (Gomez Peak and Gila National Forest). Rather than going chronologically, I thought I’d post about the Silver City downtown area, as seen on several days.

First, some maps for reference! I’ll need to follow this with a post about Boston Hill Open Space, since as you can see it can intersect with a trip to downtown. On the map below, we are at the red square. It’s about a 10 minute walk / half mile either to the trailhead at the Boston Hill Open Space, or a bit longer the other direction to downtown.

In the map below, our house is at the star and I’ve zoomed in for more detail. Note we can walk from our house to Boston Hill, or from our house to downtown, or, something that we find to be delightful, we can go to Boston Hill, up and over on the dashed lines, and emerge in the Chihuahua Hill end of downtown, at the Spring Street trailhead. That route takes closer to an hour (the actual route goes more into Boston Hill than shown here, and there is what would be considered in Chicago a mountain to climb up and down!) so our main concern is always making sure we are off Boston Hill when it gets dark at 6:25 Central time.

So, about downtown. The downtown is larger than I expected, several blocks of storefronts on the main street, and then quite a few mixed commercial and residential housing on the surrounding blocks. Running parallel to the main street is a riverwalk area next to a stream. That area is called the Big Ditch, and was very prone to flooding for much of the town’s history. Residents got together in the 1970s to persuade the town to turn the area into a riverwalk, and it’s very pleasant now. One of my favorite parts is a mosaic mural that tells the story of the terrible flood that hit Silver City in 1903 with quotes from newspapers at the time and maps.

I’m not sure where to get this kind of data, but I bet Silver City has a really high ratio of outdoor art to population. This sculpture outside the public library was made by a local artist.

Architecture in the downtown area has a lot of influence that you’d see in a city in Mexico. There are many traditional adobe buildings that are low and have flat roofs, in pastels and bright colors. Especially in the Chihuahua Hill area, building fronts are right up on the street and multicolored (more photos to come of that area, thought I had taken more already!) It reminds us of being in Campeche, Mexico, very fond memories!

The Silver City Museum is located in a historic house downtown, and it this mosaic on the side that I just thing is so cool. The overall scene is a Mexican Day of the Dead composition, with skeletons enjoying everyday activities. But the little pieces that make up the background are flowers and butterflies, so when you get up close, it really comes to life in all kinds of ways. And the border has tiles that do a pretty amazing job of replicating the tissue paper folk art in Mexico.

These little trees are so sculptural, they make me think they’re like little friends all over the place here. They are called Soaptree Yucca, or Yucca Elata in Spanish. They grow in the wild and also are popular in yards. Maybe looking at cactus and seeing people is a result of too much isolation? I’m thinking so, but if I had to choose a cactus as a friend, I’d choose these.