In the first part of 1898, Steve and Rob took the boys out west of White Oaks towards the wide plain the railroad would come through on it’s way north out of El Paso. As we come out of the White Oaks canyon , we pause to take a look around. To the naked eye all you see are a few hawks up against the blue sky.
Rob takes out the telescope and looks south . There is a work crew about three miles south with a railway road bed behind them. Looking north Rob sees survey stakes heading north, on as far as you could see.
Well that’s it, no spur being laid out to White Oaks, there is not going to be a railroad though White Oaks any time soon
Most likely never if truth be told.
We kept this to ourselves but soon others in town became aware.
Never heard if the major landowners , Barber, Hewitt and Watson ever got together to decide what was the best course of action to take based on this news. Hewitt was still advocating some new strike would save the town and he told anyone that would listen that story. We never heard Barber or Watson say anything.
Steve and Rob saw it like this: if no new strike came and in the next 120 years none did, the town was good as dead .
So if you did not pay your property taxes it got published in the paper and anyone could buy your lot and home for a few dollars of back taxes. You took the chance no one would on maybe lots you owned on speculation that no structure was on like rent houses , and wait till next years taxes on the improved lots. Hoping some good news would come along Or you had already left town and could not care what happens.
Well when the delinquent taxes for 1899 were published almost the whole dang residential area was included in the list. Everyone had given up hope. And no one came forward to scoop up the cheap lots and vacant homes either. Even when Carrizozo was being built supplies came from El Paso or Las Vegas not White Oaks. Maybe the newspaper article from 1892 after Jay Gould died still left a bad taste in the railroad building group. None of the merchants in White Oaks did any material business in the building of Carrizozo.
It was now obvious to everyone,
It was all over, done and gone.