Story and Photo by Ross Hecox
Sunset can be a mystical time, as the light dims and nocturnal creatures begin crawling out of their hiding places. If you’re alone near a remote ghost town and a large cemetery in New Mexico, it’s understandable to get a certain, eerie feeling as the sun sinks below the mesas.
Alex Carone, president of Singleton Ranches, recalls working by himself several years ago near the abandoned village of Chaperito.
“I was down here from early morning till night, five days a week, putting this irrigation system back in,” he said. “And there were a few times at dusk that the hair would just raise up on my neck. You can say it was the wind or my imagination. No, it dang sure was a presence.”
Situated on the Gallinas River in San Miguel County, Chaperito has been barren of living residents for 60 or more years. Headstones in the cemetery bear the names of Alarco, Apodaca, Lucero, Nasio and others who passed late in the 19th century and no more recently than the 1950s. The hundreds of gravesites and elegantly crafted headstones—many in the shape of a cross—tell the story of a thriving, mostly Catholic community that carved out a livelihood in the dry climate of eastern New Mexico.
Nearby, crumbling structures made of flagstone and adobe are all that remains of what were likely homes, shops, churches and a school. An old bridge, with its iron trusses, concrete abutments and decaying wood deck, stretches 150 feet across the river, connecting to another bygone village named Los Torres.
Established in 1846 as a land grant from the Republic of Mexico, Chaperito was made up of farmers and herdsmen. By 1848, at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, the town was annexed into the newly formed U.S. territory of New Mexico, which attained statehood in 1912. It’s likely that those developments caused almost unnoticeable changes in the day-to-day lives of Chaperitas, who raised crops and herded sheep some 100 miles from the capital of Santa Fe and 25 miles from the young settlement of Las Vegas, a port of entry to the Santa Fe Trail established in 1835.
According to the book, Chaperito, Land Grant, Parish & Ghost Town, the community had its share of encounters with raiding Comanches, U.S. Cavalry and buffalo hunters. By 1860, the town boasted a population of 436. A post office was opened in 1875, and a school was established in 1879.
“This was a complete agrarian society,” Carone says. “They irrigated 1,100 acres. There were five points of diversion [along the Gallinas River] from Las Vegas all the way down to our dam, which was the lowest dam, Los Torres.”
Carone is impressed with the irrigation system built by Chaperito farmers, and he has worked to preserve the system. They built the Los Torres dam, and from the resulting reservoir diverted water with a ditch that ran along the riverbank and then into nearby plains where they grew their crops.
“They worked hard to build it, and it runs about three miles long,” he says.
Today, the old Chaperito townsite is located on the Conchas division of Singleton Ranches. Owned by the Singleton family, the cattle operation is made up of multiple ranch divisions in New Mexico and California that total more than 1.3 million acres.
Carone took it upon himself to rebuild the irrigation system and retain one of the oldest water rights granted in New Mexico. Using heavy equipment, he re-dug the ditch and refurbished the dam. He doesn’t plan to irrigate any fields of crops; he’s just happy to have the rights to about 107 acre-feet of water. It secures a crucial resource for Singleton cattle in a region that averages 15 inches of rain annually.
Working along the Gallinas River has helped Carone appreciate the society that existed from 1846 until 1957. The history book on Chaperito suggests that residents who left to fight in World War II did not return after discovering other opportunities in more populated areas. A devastating drought during the late 1940s and early 1950s took its toll as well.
“There was an extended drought here, where the river dried up completely,” Carone says. “No snow in the mountains means no water running down here. Farmers in these villages were starving.”
By 1957, the Chaperito post office had closed, and it is uncertain how long the last holdouts stayed afterward.
“It’s much easier for us than it was for them,” Carone says, contrasting Chaperitos with Singleton cowboys and other modern-day ranchers. “This country is better suited for cattle. I think it was a wetter climate back then. The river is too unpredictable in this day and age to establish cash crops and make them productive every year.
“But we have the same philosophy. We take care of the land and the land takes care of the people that are on it. That is the only semblance of what we have in common with that old culture.”
The graveyard and ruins serve as a reminder of a lost society and way of life. A more modern but empty house and barn sit about a quarter-mile from the cemetery. Years ago Singleton Ranches used it as a camp for one of its cowboys. But it’s almost as if the community that vanished somehow prefers to remain in isolation.
“The last time we had someone living here was ‘Chaperito Chuck,’ and that was 2002,” Carone says. “Chuck lived down here in that house, I think it was like 16 months. He couldn’t take it anymore; said there were too many old Spanish spirits floating around here.”
This article appears in the Fall 2022 issue of the Ranch Record. Would you like to read more stories about NRHC and ranching life? When you become a member of the Ranching Heritage Association, you’ll receive the award-winning Ranch Record magazine and more while supporting the legacy and preservation of our ranching heritage. Become a member today.
