Shafter Historic Mining District

Shafter is a former silver mining town and smelter site on Cibolo Creek beside U.S. 67, about 20 miles north of Presidio in Presidio County, Texas. Silver was identified in the Chinati Mountains in the early 1880s, and Major William B. Shafter helped form the Presidio Mining Company. Over the decades the mines produced about $20,000,000 in silver and large quantities of lead, with about 300 employees at a time. The company provided a club house, hospital, boarding house and miners' housing. Residents built the surviving stone and adobe structures from native materials and salvaged mine timber. A National Guard and later Army camp operated here from 1916 to 1920 to guard against border raids. Mining ended in 1942. The district includes an adobe church, residences, ruins and smelter remains. It is considered the first major mining town in west Texas, and its partly occupied, undisturbed ruins hold archeological potential that has not yet been studied.