Steins, New Mexico

Steins (pronounced "steens") is one of the easiest ghost towns to find and to get to anywhere. The fact that any of it remains is probably due to its relative obscurity and the fact that it is on private, fenced property, which protects it from casual passers by. Steins is in Hidalgo County three miles east of the Arizona/New Mexico border at I-10, exit 3. The town itself is literally a few hundred feet north of the interstate, and cars and trucks go whizzing by while you're visiting. Steins is mentioned in only three of my references, the Shermans' book ("Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of New Mexico," 1975), the Varney book ("New Mexico's Best Ghost Towns," 1981), and the Harris book ("Ghost Towns Alive," 2003).

When we visited on a Sunday morning in early April of 2009, we saw no one around, although there was a mobile home near the entrance to the town that looked lived in and had a dog out front. There were also several tractor-trailers parked as though they had spent the night there, but we saw no one around them. We stayed for only about 20 minutes as it didn't seem that tourists were especially welcome, and there wasn't all that much to see, anyway, since everything was fenced off.


At left if the sign for the Steins exit heading eastbound on I-10. The exit comes up quickly on the right around the rock formation, and you have to be quick or you'll miss it. At right is the little sign at the end of the exit ramp pointing to the left for Steins.



These are the two signs that more or less greet you as you "enter" Steins. A nice, crude, "closed" sign at left (note the fencing in the foreground), and a nice, colorful "Steins Ghost Town" sign at right.



Here's a photo of probably the most picturesque thing remaining in Steins, the Steins Mercantile store. It looks like a modern addition has been added to the rear of the store. We would have liked to look at it more closely, but it was well behind the fencing. To the right are the remains of a building. We saw lots of remains in this state of decay. Note the double-trailer truck passing by behind. That's on I-10, and with this you get a sense of just how close to the interstate the town is. Interestingly, none of the three references I have that discuss Steins at all have a photo of this store. You would think that it would be prominently featured as it is so ghost-town-ish looking. Below is another view of the store taken at an angle that allows you to get another sense of the proximity of the store and town to the highway. You also get a better sense of the state of decay of the foundations of the other buildings that were once part of Steins.






Above and below are photos from page 199 of the Sherman book. If they date from the copyright date of the book (1975), they show the condition of the various buildings whose foundations are all we see today nearly 35 years earlier.

The photo below, which shows a wider view of the town today, is from approximately the same angle as the photo above. Note the shape of the rock formation in the distance on the right side of both photos. You get a sense of how little, other than the Mercantile store, remains of the town. Although I'm sure it could be done if one went back to the site, it's difficult in these photos to associate any of the buildings above with any particular set of remains below. Three semis parked at various angles apparently spent the night, and one of them (the one on the right facing us) had several scary-looking, "stay away" signs around it. The driver probably just didn't want to be bothered. That's our van to the right of the truck in the center. The view is to the west, so the interstate highway is out of sight to the left.



The photo below is from page 135 of Varney's book, and it gives another view similar to the two above, but from the other direction, and it's from 1981. The buildings look to be in a little more state of decay than they were in 1975.



Below are two more photos of the foundations taken during our visit. Note the ever-present fence.





A couple of signs help you find your way back to I-10 after your visit. These were not put up by the New Mexico Department of Transportation!



The underpass you must go through to get to I-10 eastbound or if you exit from I-10 eastbound to get to the town. It seemed that our van would barely fit!