San Franciso Church ~ New Mexico Ghost Town Village Church

San Franciso Church ~ 1976
Golden, New Mexico
Karen Rivera

Golden, New Mexico, on the Turquoise Trail,  is having  a bit of a renaissance these days. It’s still a ghost town but the few houses have been restored and the old Mercantile is open in the summer for the tourists. Built in 1830, he San Francisco Church off Highway 14, doesn’t look much different than when I was shooting black and whites in the mid-70’s. Restored in 1960 by Fray Angelico Chavez while he was the padre of St. Joseph’s Church in Los Cerrillos, the graveyard has mostly escaped the vandalism common to New Mexico’s abandoned mining towns.