By Kathleen Blair
June 2023 Black Range Museum Bookshelf Notes
Greetings to all from the Black Range Museum Bookshelf! In our Gift Shop we carry about 100 titles to offer for an interesting selection to feed your curiosity. We emphasize books relevant to the Hillsboro Historical Society’s mission statement and topics developed in our museum displays. Our titles focus on the people and events that have impacted our region of the southwest including Native Americans, mining, ranching, local community development, significant places, and historical events, as well as natural history. We also keep books on more current activities such as hiking and camping, field guides, a children’s section, our giftshop artists skills, and a few southwestern classics just for a good, thoughtful read! In these periodic notes, I will try to keep abreast as new tiles are acquired and favorites revisited.
Remember, with your membership you receive our Quarterly Journal filled with interesting articles as well. Just a note …in keeping with our desire to conserve natural resources as well as keep costs down for you and us, some of our books are second hand but in good condition.
Guide to the New Mexico Mountains, Ungnade. With over 100 mountain ranges in New Mexico, each with a unique geologic and human history, this guidebook is unusually diverse in telling the story of each. It provides detailed information on access, directions, appropriate activities by season and area, contacts, history, ecology, locations, or features of particular interest.
Children’s books. If you are traveling with little ones or need a birthday present, we have several books for young children with a southwest slant that may be worth a look! 10 Little Rabbits, Bedtime in the Southwest, 3 Little Javalinas, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Soft Child are examples.
.
Silver Hill by Jal Mora
Although most of our books are non-fiction, we do have a few fiction titles with local settings and histories written by local authors. Sometimes historical events are best remembered and explained as people’s individual stories. Two such books are highlighted here. The first is Silver Hill by Jal Mora. This book is set in the fictional town of Silver Hill but is based on Hillsboro, where miners, sheriffs, and ranchers all become entangled in layers of connection, friendship, and deceit.
Rimfire by Tom Diamond
The second historical fiction we highlight is Tom Diamond’s Rimfire. This book is set in events surrounding the territory of his family’s ranch in the Gila mountains, west of present-day Winston. Ranchers, Apaches, saloon girls, bankers, miners, stage drivers, and the Army all interact in this book told with great understanding of the many perspectives, personalities, and choices the people living in that place and time made
Aldo Leopold’s Southwest. Brown and Carmony Editors
On Sunday, June 25, The Hillsboro Historical Society is looking forward to presenting a talk on Aldo Leopold’s history by Steve Brower. We will have another talk by Steve Morgan on July 22, 2023 as well. 2024 marks the 100-year anniversary of the world’s first designated Wilderness Area – our very own Gila Wilderness! Aldo Leopold was the driving force behind the concepts of wilderness values, modern range and wildlife management, and public recreation and he worked and formed many of those ideas while here in New Mexico. The Aldo Leopold Wilderness honors him. This book consolidates his essays written about this area. Read up on a unique American idea, and come to the presentation, too!
A Beautiful, Cruel Country, Wilbur-Cruce. Steve Dobrott, our HHS past president, gave a great talk last month on one of the few remaining herds of Spanish Barb horse’s in the US, their history on the Wilbur-Cruce Ranch and, finally, connection to the Ladder Ranch. This is the herd that belonged to Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce and this book is her story growing up, tough as her horses, on their family ranch in southern Arizona.