Customer Reviews

Black Range Tales: Sixty Years of Life and Adventure in the Southwest (A Rio Grande classic)

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This book focuses on life in the 1880's in and around an area of southwestern New Mexico known as the Gila. Much of the area McKenna describes is now protected wildeness and exists today as it did in Mckenna's time. McKenna's brings to life many of the places that today are forgotten points on the map or have fallen of the map completely. He brings insight into the origin of many of the place names in the area, describing how places like Raw Meat Canyon and the Jerkey Mountains were named.

This is also an excellent resource for any one interested in the legendary Lost Adams Diggings.

I was born in Santa Rita, and grew up in Deming. Went hunting with my father and camped and hiked with Boy Scouts in many parts of the southern Black Range. Have a few minor tales of my own.

I may have even met McKenna as a child when my father visited at the sanatorium where he,(McK) died.

The book really brought the charcters to life as well as many fond memories about the area. -- The historical insights as to the times and laws of the mining camps reads as well as S. Clemons, at times (probably with as much yarn spinning as real truth). Fantastic book.

As a native son of the Gila region in southwestern New Mexico and old enough to have had family and friends who knew McKenna and other settlers, Black Range Tales bring the history and struggles to life. This is the area that Geronimo was born and waged war in; a region that also had a silver mine (The Bridal Chamber) which produced ore 95% pure. The pillars left behind to support the ceiling in the chamber rang when struck with a hammer. McKenna's description of the region and that slice of history is very interesting reading.

Excellent study of Southwestern New Mexico history. As a young child I learned many of these tails from the Silver City and Grant County people who actually lived them.

This book helps to make history come alive. After you read this you will feel as though you've been transported through time and space and then returned!

Everyone interested in New Mexico history MUST read this book.

The author was in the old west and experienced all the things fiction writers only dream about..It is very good and give a good insight into history.

A movie (McKenna's Gold) was made from just one chapter in this book. James McKenna went west as a young man first working in the Colorado gold fields and then moving down to the strikes in Southwest New Mexico. Much of the book reads like campfire yarns that are humorous, historical, and interesting. Very enjoyable.
Evidently, James kept a diary from the time he left home until he retired and then, with the help of others, tried to organize his diaries into a book. So some of the chronology and some of the geographics seem blurred. But the humor, slang, and historical anecdotes of the times are priceless.

A colorful and honest account of mining and settling in southwestern New Mexico at the beginning of the century. A depiction of history without academic revisionism or sanitized for political correctness.