Contadero, New Mexico

Contadero is a ghost town along the east bank of the Rio Grande in Socorro County, New Mexico, United States.

Originally the site was part of a paraje called "El Contadero" for several hundred years along the narrow trail of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, west and south of Mesa del Contadero between the river and the mesa.

[2] : 270, 294  [3] In the 19th century, with Fort Craig, located across the river, providing protection from Apache attacks and providing employment, a small town named Contadero was established in the vicinity of the Corrales de Contadero in the 1860s along the river on the south side of the mesa.

Within a few years the Elephant Butte Reservoir rose and covered the fields in the river valley and the town of Contadero, was abandoned.

[1]: 158 Today there are only few remains of the settlement amongst the brush west of the railroad tracks, the ruin of the church and foundations of a house surrounded by Mexican era rock corrals.