Blackdom, New Mexico

Blackdom is a ghost town in Chaves County, New Mexico, that was founded by African-American settlers in 1901 and abandoned in the mid-1920s. Founded by Frank and Ella Boyer under the requirements of the Homestead Act, the town experienced significant growth in the first decades with settlers from throughout the United States moving to the community. A drought starting in 1916 caused many of the settlers to relocate and the town became uninhabited in 1921.GeographyThe Blackdom site is located eight miles west of Dexter, New Mexico and 18mi south of Roswell. The altitude is 3638ft.HistoryHenry Boyer, a Freedman from Pullam, Georgia, was a wagoner with the army units of Stephen W. Kearny during the Mexican-American War in 1846. Henry's son, Frank Boyer, was raised hearing stories from his father about New Mexico before being educated at Morehouse College and Fisk University. While at school, he learned about the legal requirements for homesteading. Frank started teaching in Georgia and soon married Ella Louise Boyer (née McGruder), herself a teacher graduated from the Haines Institute. Frank began encouraging African-Americans to report and challenge abuses in the Jim Crow-era South. When his life was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan, Frank's father encouraged him to move to the West for his safety. In 1896, Frank traveled to New Mexico with two students, Daniel Keyes (who married Ella's sister Willie Frances) and one with the last name of Ragsdale, on foot picking up day labor work along the way. Ella and their four children followed in 1901. Frank's idea was to found a self-sustaining community which would be free from the hindrances that existed in the South.