Raul Turrieta, left, and Mayor Ken Ladner welcome the crowd at the Silco Theatre to Saturday’s Territorial Charter Day celebration. The event included musicians and skits about Silver City’s founding, including Turrieta portraying Juan Patron, speaker of the 1878 Territorial House of Representatives, and Ladner as Silver City’s first mayor, Robert Black, in a re-creation of the signing of the charter.
Residents gathered Saturday at the Silco Theatre to celebrate with music and theater what Mayor Ken Ladner called Silver City’s independence day.
Territorial Charter Day, marking the 146th anniversary of the pre-statehood document that incorporated the town, got underway with music from Mariachi Luna Llena de Las Cruces. The snow and cold relocated them to the theater’s lobby from their planned spot on the sidewalk outside, but barker Aiken Maciain, in period costume in front of the theater, could be heard up and down Bullard Street inviting passersby into the free event.
Mayor Ladner noted in his welcoming remarks that a 2016 resolution passed by the Town Council began the annual observation of Territorial Charter Day. It was Ladner’s first year as mayor.
“I felt like it was important to celebrate our history. It’s a rich history,” he said. “I kind of look at it as our Fourth of July, because 100 years after, … that’s when the citizens of Silver City came up with their own declaration of independence.”
As the mining town began to grow, residents lobbied the territorial government in Santa Fe for a charter that would incorporate the town, allowing it to elect local leaders and enact taxes.
But the capital — controlled by a corrupt group of politicians that became known as the Santa Fe Ring — refused, and in 1876, Grant County began efforts to secede to Arizona Territory.
Although the movement had support in both Grant County and Arizona, a bill to change the territorial boundary died in Congress. But the fight over Silver City’s future led to the New Mexico Territorial Legislature approving a charter for the town on Feb. 15, 1878.
“We are what we are today because of the earliest people who sacrificed so much to give us what we have,” Ladner said.
That fight was given some life Saturday, as actors performed skits about the times, written by Kris Isom and directed by Phyllis McQuaide.
Doug Dinwiddie played a grandfather telling his grandson, played by Ronan Euler, how Silver City defeated “the bad guys,” not with guns but with the pen, in the play’s first act.
The second act re-created the creation of the charter, with Jim Charleston playing Thomas Catron and Ted Pressler as Stephen Elkins, two members of the Santa Fe Ring, and then the charter’s signing, with Ladner as Silver City’s first mayor, Robert Black, Raul Turrieta as Juan Patron, George Carr as Santiago Baca and Ward Rudick playing territorial Gov. Samuel Axtell.
Silver City is the only municipality in New Mexico operating under a specific charter, and although some of its elements are no longer in effect, it is still relevant today, Ladner said.
“There are some things that the state took away from us,” Ladner said. “We can’t set our own elections. The state governs our elections. We used to have elections based on the charter.”
But, he noted, “we still use elements of it.”
“It gives Silver City a unique flavor,” said Ladner’s wife, Becky Smith.
Turrieta gave a presentation on burlesque baseball, in which rules are bent and players wear costumes rather than uniforms. The colorful variant of the sport was a popular pastime in early Silver City, and was revived for the 2020 Territorial Charter Day. Turrieta said there are plans for another game in May.
Silver City’s flavor was presented in music as well, with performances by Alyssia Carrillo, one-man band Flicker, and Angelica Padilla and Frankie Bandin.
—JUNO OGLE