Hope you are doing well! I went to Silver City yesterday and am prepared now to give you my views on the town:
1.) It is definitely greener than LC with juniper bushes, scrub oaks, and pinon pines. Very pretty area. Looks like they get more rain than LC as there is taller, denser grass that grows in the cattle country leading to the foothills which is Silver City. This grass is now dried.
2.) imo, Silver City is an old mining town. The downtown has old buildings (doors that are smaller and whose base is the ground level, for example) that represent the riches that the town once possessed (probably at the turn of the 20th century, I am guessing). Love this architecture. In California, there is some of this sort of architecture left, that is, the buildings that haven't come down in an earthquakes(s). So, for you Californians, I can't really compare the downtown here to another place. Maybe San Luis Obispo. However, SLO has several streets that comprise the downtown, so its not quite the same. In fact, outside of town there is an active strip-mine. Not sure if they are mining copper or silver as there are references in Silver City to both metals. (The name of one of the businesses we went to was named, "Copper Country."
3.) We saw a building for Western NM State Univ on the main drag in to Silver City.
4.) There is a creek running thru Silver City between Hudson and Bullard Streets. Along the way, there are small bridges for people to walk from one side to another. It is a natural creek. When we were there yesterday, there was a bit of snow on the ground/trees and I walked up to the creek to take a look at it. Not a lot to say since it was cold, 39 degrees, outside.
5.) Bullard is the downtown street and the best place for Mexican food there is Jalisco's Cafe. Very clean inside and a bit upscale.
6.) Bullard has a number of small businesses, with just a couple of small art galleries. What I mostly saw was small restaurants, a wireless store, kitchen ware store (Note to the store owners: When I travel to a right-on American town like Silver City, I am not interested in buying stuff Made in China. Rant over.) There was also a thrift store, antique stores, and a couple of bars. There are more stores but I cannot recall them all. Sorry.
7.) The local paper's name is the "Silver City Daily Press & Independent." (Also has: "Gateway to the Gila Wilderness" as a side title.) Its online site is:
www.scdailypress.com There are three real estate ads in this paper: 6 For Sales and one For Rent. Example of the rental ad: "1 bed, 1 bath apt, max 2 persons, no pets, no smoking. Includes all utilities except elec. $440/mo., $440/dep. No HUD." Land For Sale ad. One ad for foreclosures. Another for HUD homes for sale. Prices are from the 165k for the 3 br to 75k for land with well & septic.
8.) I wish we could live here as opposed to LC but LC is about 110 miles away and we just cannot commute that far. (Some do, though.)
9.) Employment: there is a major call-center on the outskirts of town next to WalMart. There is a Motel 6, a Holiday Inn Express, and the usual junk food establishment drive-thru's.
10.) There are 2 local grocery stores. One is on Hudson street, the other is on the main drag coming into town (180???, Can't remember.) I saw one vitamin store called, Messiah's. Across the way from the market on Hudson.
11.) The weather was cold (for me) - 38 degrees coming into town, 39 in town. If you are from Alaska, Montana, Minnesota, etc., you could walk around in a tee-shirt and be OK
I would think its cooler than LC in the summertime.
Note to Californians: The climate/terrain is a lot like Gorman, Lake of the Woods, Tehachapi, Pinon Hills (outside of Hesperia). Put Bishop in there too. HTH!
~Cali-girl
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Rents in Silver city
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