"Coal Town, the Life and Times of Dawson, New Mexico"
Toby Smith
ISBN 0-941270-82-3

My wife and I discovered Dawson on a vacation to northern New Mexico. A picture on a historical marker showed a once relatively large town that had had many houses and facilities. We were both struck by there being a cemetery with no surviving town. Later, when, during a web search, I came across Toby Smith's book about Dawson. I ordered it.

With a relatively obscure subject, this is a book not likely to be widely read, and that is a shame. Because the book that Toby Smith has written is a remarkable one. Through extensive interviewing, he has reconstructed the vanished homes and buildings of Dawson, re-populated them with departed generations of citizens, and breathed life back into what was once a dynamic coal mining community.

There are photos in the book that depict, among other things, the bodies of miners in caskets after a 1923 mining explosion, the proud 1937 football team that shared the state championship, and a 1941 photo of a smiling GI on furlough with his brother and sisters. Apart from the pictures, Mr. Smith tells stories about and gives impressions of many of the townsfolk. What Edgar Lee Masters did for the people in the fictional Spoon River cemetery, Smith has done for the former inhabitants of Dawson.

Our vacation walk through the Dawson cemetery revealed that many of the coalminers were from other countries. One section contains graves of over two hundred men, mostly Italians, who were killed in a disastrous mine explosion in 1913. Other nationalities represented in Dawson were Yugoslavs, Japanese, Finns, French, Swedes, and Mexicans.

The Phelps Dodge Company that owned the mines and the entire town, in many regards, engaged in enlightened management. For example, it had an anti-discrimination policy for employees of all nationalities and races, including blacks. After the 1913 tragedy, Smith writes that the company "did not look at the tragedy in terms of lost earnings." To its credit, each widow was given $1000, each miner's child $200, and the family of each bachelor $500, large amounts for that time. On the other hand, the company remained a staunch holdout for years in recognizing the miners' union.

In 1950, with coal demand having steadily declined from the heyday of the coal-burning, steam engine, Phelps Dodge closed Dawson's last mine. As it owned all the buildings and houses, the town was simply shut down. Everyone left, and the buildings and equipment were sold off. Dawson, unlike other defunct mining towns, though, for over fifty years has refused to die. A visitor to the cemetery can see that it is still kept up, and every other year, former residents gather on the town site to have a picnic and to reminisce.

There is something about the universal human struggle in this story of Dawson, and Toby Smith has written a fine book about it.

One of the pleasures I was able to provide for my father, shortly before his death at 89, was the gift of this book. Toby Smith has done a wonderful job of resurrecting and bringing back to life the "ghosts" of this coal mining camp, known now only for its cemetary. My parents and I read the book together, reliving our personal memories of the people and the environment which not only shaped our lives but was forever etched on our consiousness. There was so much he could have written about Dawson but his excellent culling and synthesizing of the countless interviews brings to life the essence of the "company town" and the lives of the resident. He was able to show that in this community of immigrants, ethnicity meant sharing your cusine and your culture rather than an emphasis on differences, a phenomena no doubt influnced by the impact of thedangerous unpredictable occupation of mining coal that united us all. My second reading left me with the impression of "a story well told", one which could be enjoyed not only by former "Dawsonians" and current New Mexicans but by anyone who enjoys a glimpse of what life was like in those times in a place where "everyone knew your name". Those whose lives have been disrupted by the closing of plant or industry might also enjoy it. Mr. Smith should do a sequel focusing on my generation and their view of how growing up in Dawson influenced their live.

This is a great book even you are not interested in the state of New Mexico... and if you are that much the better. Toby, a journalist for the Albuquerque Tribune, looks at ordinary people, landmarks, and places in a way that brings them alive. He choses interesting subjects and then lets you feel that you've been there and met them. Very objective, interesting, and accurate.

Toby Smith has an enviable ability to bring his subjects -- the people of New Mexico -- to life. My favorite story is "A Clean Sweep," but every one has something to enjoy. This is my second favorite book on New Mexico. My first is "New Mexico Odyssey," by the same author!

This is one of the most disappointing books I have read in years; Smith's problem seems to be that he was fascinated by space movies as a 10-year-old and has never gotten beyond that stage.

The book reads as if it was a cut-and-paste Internet collection of everything imaginable that might relate to the so-called "Roswell Incident" -- supposedly the crash of a flying saucer near Roswell in 1947 -- compiled with a studious avoidance of anything serious, plus at least an occasional inexactitude with facts. One of the simplest facts he ignores is the US Air Force funding of "flying saucer" research in the 1950's; think of it, a 199-page book that totally ignores the only known research done on the feasibility of building and flying a genuine flying saucer.

Let's face it. New Mexico is one of the poorest states (I lived there off and on since 1967, as recently as 1996), with some of the lowest education standards in the nation. Albuquerque, where Smith is based, has one of the nation's highest crime rates -- the city has declined precipitously since the 1960's. You don't see states at the top of the economic and social scale claiming to see "flying saucers" that are driven by kind-hearted ambassadors who will rescue us earthlings from our folly. Like the 'cargo cults' in the South Pacific after World War II, such miraculous interventions are the product of a superstitious culture without much hope for improvement.

Roswell is in "Little Texas," not quite in the oil-patch but close enough to be infected. Except for the political boundary, it's more Texas in attitude than New Mexico. Smith misses this primary element of the Roswell area, and in general ignores the mystical "New Age" atmosphere of New Mexico. It's his major fault -- the book doesn't have a specific focus. It wanders from topic to topic like a bored TV viewer with 500 channels to watch, never stopping long enough to understand anything.

It's a shame. Smith tackled one of the most interesting situations in New Mexico, and turned it into utter boredom. Roswell, the 'little gray men," flying saucers and the nature of government coverups deserve much better.

I'm afraid Teddy Rushton is a little misleading with his review. He either doesn't read much, saying this was one of the most disappointing books he's read, or the author ran over his dog. I don't get it. To say that this book was pasted from internet information is absurd. This book is original from beginning to end. Little Gray Men isn't a history lesson about the Roswell incident, it is a look at the Alien culture that came after the supposed landing. I don't think Rushton got it. I'm not sure what Rushton has against New Mexico either. I've been there as well and think it is a very pretty state. I wasn't robbled or held up. Did he get a hangnail, a nosebleed? We don't know, but his personal attact on this author is not justified nor is the grade he gives this book. I found Little Gray Men comical and highly entertaining. Smith's look at the pop culture that has been created from the alien invasion of America is observant. I'd like to know when Rushton will be back in New Mexico, so I can meet him there and show him to a bookstore.

Believe, baby. Believe that the key event in all history happened on July 4 (or maybe July 5; sources disagree), 1947, and that most homo sapiens still don't know about it. Screaming from night skies outside of Roswell fell ... something. A UFO, stated an early radio report, man's first contact with extra-terrestrials. And our own government has stashed the bodies, deduced Those Who Believe.

So began Roswell's auspicious ascent to synonymy with a UFO obsession that would color conspiracies and entertainment for the remainder of the century. From the so-called Roswell Incident, too, Toby Smith's Little Gray Men takes off (hee hee) on a frequently funny pastiche of New Mexico's oddest socio-phenomenon.

Smith displays a Roswell known and unknown -- how many of the attendees at 50th Anniversary bash Encounter '97 had ever heard of formerly neighboring town Blackdom? -- on his tour through a pop culture mecca's half-century. Personalities haunt these pages with rocketeer Robert Goddard, sci-fi scribe Jack Williamson and golfer Nancy Lopez rubbing shoulders with nonplussed, bumper sticker-hawking locals. And even Governor "Toke" Johnson makes a cameo to state he knows what happened, but ain't tellin'.

Mr. Smith amuses throughout, admirably tracing public consciousness of Roswell from New Yorker cartoons to incessant "X-Files" subplots (subtract a few points, though, for omitting mention of a certain Chevy Malibu in the classic flick Repo Man). Over-embellishment is sometimes problematic, but wackiness definitely predominates.

And the Incident? That's easy: experimental military technology; nothing more, nothing less. Obviously.

on page 66 there is an article written by The Dawson News. In that article it has a list of bodies recovered from the 1923 explosion. But there is one George Makris, my great uncle, that was killed in the 1913 explosion not the 1923 one.