| |
Old Coal Mine Museum
|
When you stroll up the tunnel
from the Mine Shaft Tavern to the Old Coal Mine Museum located
on the Turquoise Trail (State Highway 14) in Madrid, NM, you will
step back into time... A time when the last train carrying Madrid
coal left town and everything ground to a hasty halt. The few
houses still occupied were evacuated, the lights in the few stores
still operating were turned off for the last time. At the "nerve
center" of the whole mining operation (now the Old Coal Mine
Museum), offices were deserted. The mining community founded circa
1890 became a "Ghost Town" in 1959.
The Old Coal Mine Museum was a "junkyard" collection of mining and railroad relics overseen by Joe Huber (son of Oscar Huber, the Superintendent of the Albuquerque and Cerrillos Coal Company) until 1982 when Hank and Ede Salkeld purchased the Mine Shaft Tavern and the museum. Hank converted the steam engine repair building, one of the seven tin covered buildings, into a stage theater for the purpose of presenting turn-of-the-century melodrama productions to the public. These plays have become extremely popular over the past 16 seasons and the Engine House Theatre has become internationally known.
The Theater's stage and balcony were constructed from recycled relics and salvaged railroad track. The original track still runs the length of the center aisle. The seats that were the old wooden auditorium- type seats, salvaged from the Madrid Recreation Center were replaced by cushioned, upholstered, opera-style seats in '92 donoted by the Center of Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe.
The focal point of the Coal Mine Museum is
Engine 767. This Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad locomotive
was built in 1900 and was almost completely restored by John Coker
(a retired Engineer on the historic Cumbres-Toltec line) and is
considered the most complete non-operating steam locomotive in
the U.S. This may well be the only theater in the world with a
full-sized steam locomotive nosing onto the stage! Also on the
3 acre museum grounds, you will find an old time working blacksmith
shop, vintage autos and trucks, firefighting equipment, medical
office equipment, farm equipment, homemaking and carpentry equipment,
along with silent and early sound movie projectors, a slope shaft
that exposes a 4 foot bituminous coal seam and much more.
Since Cliff and Ede Cato purchased
the museum from Hank Salkeld in 1993, they have been "digging
out" more relics and records than ever before and are displaying,
organizing, identifying, cleaning and researching the items. A
former longtime resident of Madrid, Terry Conrad, invited them
to clean out the cellar of one of the main company buildings he
had purchased. They uncovered a "treasure trove" of
records, maps, and blueprints that relate to the company operations
from 1900 through the 1940's.
The Old Coal Mine Museum is open to visitors daily, year-round (weather permitting). Most of the equipment is available to rent for film or stage productions including the museum site, itself.
