Ghost Town - Dpo - Playas, NM

I was doing a little research on Playas, NM and found some interesting information.

Playas is one of the 112 different town/po's listed for the state of New Mexico within Hidalgo County in the New Mexico bootheal and is noted as a DPO in the "PSS Town & Type of the United States & Territories". Then I refered to my copy of "United States Post Offices, Volume I - The West" where Playas shows to have a PO from 1912-17. There is no later listings.

Playas was founded in 1902 as a siding along the the new El Paso & Southwestern Railroad which was being built Phelps, Dodge & Co. that was connecting the copper mines of Bisbe, AZ to El Paso, TX. The sight was picked for it's abundance of water and to several other mining operations nearby. Cattle would also become important to the local economy. But the town simply faded away in short time.

This causes a pit of intrigue because the listed precancel type is a vinyl handstamp type 841, however I know that vinyl handstamps did not start until July 1, of 1958. Proving that the PO of Playas & the precancel of Playas are not the same.

So where is Playas?

Then during the 1970's the Phelps Dodge Corp. the successor of the original company that help build up the original Playas, built a copper smelter south of the old Playas & also a new company town with over 250 homes, 6 apartment buildings, as well as several recreational sites, a bar & a grill. The company owned everything and the population grew to over 1,000. Declining copper prices lead to closing the smelter in 1999 essentially creating another ghost town.

Now this is the likely the location of the precancel Playas, the era is correct, but has no PO to match. Playas was listed as having a Zip of 88009 with the USPO. I had generally believe that a Zip equalled PO, but I found that this Zip is shown as being under Lordsburg, the county seat of Hidalgo, whose Zip is 88045. The 88009 Zip was listed to an address of #1 Playa Plaza but under Lordsburg PO. The 88009 Zip
is equal the Zip 88045-011.

So I surmise that the Lordsburg postmaster requested and received the approval and a pecancel device from USPO for Playas likely precanceled and sold stamps to the Phelps Dodge Corp. who in turn sold the stamps to company employees for there personal use. This would have allowed Lordsburg to handle a fairly large volume of mail that did not need the required cancellation & also help avoid that cost of opening & operating another PO.

The story of Playas is not over in 2004 the New Mexico Tech purchased Playas from the Phelps-Dodge Corp. for $5 million with the use of a grant from the Department of Homeland Security with the intent of converting the town into counter-terrorism training facility.

This just goes to show that some precancels are not s simple as they seem.

By the way, how often does a town with the same become a Ghost Town.

Interesting. Can you post a scan of the precancelled stamp?

Sorry! I do have this precancel but scanner is down.

Santa did not bring a new one for this Christmas!

Mike,
I'll put in a good word for you for next year. Your posts are always interesting and informative.

Here is scan of Playas NM 841. On my album page it's at the bottom with other new types that were issued after my album was organized. If you need to know the subtle difference between Taos 871 and 872 - this scan will show it also: http://home.roadrunner.com/~adrion/newmexico.jpg

Thanks Chasa. I do like the precancels that are on Postage Dues.

I just finised a 3-year project to checklist my postage due precancels into the Kimball/PSS database. Totals (which you get from pushing a button) are: stamps=29,590 towns=12,093 types=14,801

Chasa,
WOW! That's quite a collection and undertaking. Kudos!