Recently Carol Brown led us on a hike to the Ruby Hayner Mine, an abandoned fluorite mine in the Organ Mountains. The trip included visiting the remains of a house called the Topp Hut.
“The initial mining camp of Organ was officially established as a community back in 1883, though there had been mining activity since the late 1840s. The town’s greatest population was around eighteen hundred at the turn of the century. At that time, Organ had seven saloons, a Catholic church, a two-teacher schoolhouse, two smelters, two general stores and a tunnel jail that was originally a powder magazine. In the 1930s the mines in the area became inundated with water and were no longer feasible for use and with the onset of the Great Depression, mining operations ceased. However, with the opening of White Sands Missile Range and the testing of the Nuclear Bomb in 1945, Organ began to thrive again as a community providing homes and leisure services to military personnel and government contractors.” – New Mexico True