Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Silver City's Subtle Charms

Western New Mexico University, located in Silver City, is the home of an excellent museum housing the largest collection of prehistoric Mimbres Mogollon pottery and artifacts as well as an interesting collection of memorabilia and photos depicting the history of the university dating to its inception as a teaching college in 1893.

Entry to the museum is free. The pottery collection is vast and the detailed history provided on each period of the Mimbres culture is exceptionally well done. The painted pottery designs are intricate and finely detailed geometric and figurative animal and cultural designs. Well worth your time to visit.

Any walk in downtown Silver City is full of architectural fun and variety. There are many buildings from the late 1800's, some are well restored.


Nice looking art deco administrative building.




Many of the residents and business owners like to play with color.





There are some nice hiking trails at Bear Mountain Lodge, located just a few miles from downtown Silver City and nestled against the Gila National Forest. The Lodge looks like a wonderful place to stay and has some lovely artwork placed throughout the lodge and also on the grounds, courtesy of the Blue Dome Gallery.


Unique labyrinth on the Lodge grounds

Fun sculpture on the Lodge grounds





5 comments:

  1. We always enjoy Silver City...thought about moving there a long time ago. Last time we were there it seemed to have "grown up." Lots of traffic. Cool places get discovered, eh?
    Nice photos, thanks for taking us there.
    Box Canyon Mark

    PS...there are two Lisa bloggers and I get you mixed up sometimes...forgive please :)

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    1. The neat thing is that even though it's "grown up" it isn't full of cookie cutter sub divisions! If it weren't quite so dry, I would be interested in living here. Lots of hiking within 10-15 miles of town...exactly the kind of thing we will settle down to eventually.

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  2. NM is one of the state that we are thinking of staying put after our travels. Since you are there for a month we will listen to your perspective maybe over wine someday. Its nice to see these places that we have not been before.
    -ML

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  3. Sounds like some interesting discoveries in town. I would really enjoy the pottery display, John...not so much.

    You guys look great! Nice picture.

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  4. We found Bear Mtn Lodge to be lovely when we were there, even though there was quite a bit of snow on the ground. We had a couple of friends who settled in Silver City for a bit and thought they would retire there. For them it seemed to be too remote and they are not avid hikers, so they moved on. We are really enjoying your posts as we too are trying to decide where we will settle after our RVing days are over.

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