Kelley R. Ridings, an independent scholar from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, will present a lecture on “Mining Towns of Sierra County, New Mexico at the Turn of the 19th/20th Centuries” on Friday, June 12 at noon in the Willard Reading Room of Zimmerman Library. The lecture is sponsored by the Center for Southwest Research and the Office of the State Historian.
Ridings lecture will explore the communities that flourished in Sierra County from the mid 1880s to the early 1900s. The communities flourished as the mining activities grew, and faded as the mining ores were depleted. He says what were once bright hopeful communities are now either very sparsely populated ghost towns or are completely extinct.
Ridings is an accomplished educator with more than 20 years of experience in school administration and teaching.
The lecture is free and the public is welcome.