At one point, White Oaks was the second biggest city in New Mexico after Santa Fe. It’s even on the National Register of Historic Places. The town boomed when a pure vein of gold was discovered inside Baxter Mountain.

White Oaks boasted saloons, gambling dens, and brothels. A posse once chased Billy the Kid through here. When the gold ran out, the town faded, although one business does operate in White Oaks: the No Scum Allowed Saloon.

Sometimes it’s hard to decide what counts as a ghost town. Does a place have to be completely abandoned, or consist of mostly derelict buildings with just a handful of diehard residents?

Chloride fits that last description and, in recent years, efforts have been made to restore and repurpose some of the buildings. Still, the size of this mining town (twenty or so people live here) is a far cry from how busy it was during the 1880s. During its heyday, the biggest problem was attacks by Apache Indians, who wanted to repel the invading miners. Harry Pye, the town’s founder, was murdered in one such incident. But it was the 1893 silver panic and subsequent plummeting silver prices that sealed Chloride’s fate.