Old-Mining Boomtown

Roberta Key Haldane has created a massive yet lively work with 250 unique family and area photos. Her portrayal of the life and death of an 1879 boomtown makes you cry, laugh and wish that you had been among the intriguing cascade of outlaws

and rogues, hard rock and scrappy miners, ranchers, bankers, Frenchmen who ran the stage line, rich guys and the poverty-stricken workers. Some individuals from the Lincoln County War, like Susan McSween Barber, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, are included. The 40 or so personalized accounts shared in Gold-Mining Boomtown reveal a fascinating and unexpected melting pot in early-day Lincoln County history.

—Lynda Sánchez, author of Fort Stanton: An Illustrated History