Dawson (also Mountview) is a ghost town in Colfax County, New Mexico, United States.

[1] Dawson is located approximately 17 miles (27.4 km) northeast of Cimarron, and was the site of two separate coal mining disasters in 1913 and 1923.

In the late 1860s, Lucien B. Maxwell sold more than 24,000 acres (97 km2) of land to John Barkley Dawson for $3,700.

[5] The corporation needed to attract workers to the remote location, so they built homes for the miners, along with numerous other facilities, including a hospital, department store, swimming pool, movie theater, and a golf course.

With these amenities, Phelps Dodge was able to maintain a stable employment rate despite the inherent dangers of mining and the isolation of northern New Mexico.

This railroad was apparently 6,600 feet (2,011.7 meters) in length, running along Rail Canyon from the entries of Mines 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6.

The Dawson Railway was purchased by Phelps Dodge at the same time and made part of its El Paso and Southwestern Railroad system.

The Dawson Stags became members of the four-team Class D level Rocky Mountain League during the season.

Relief teams rushed in from surrounding communities and as far away as Pittsburg, Kansas and Rock Springs, Wyoming, but of the 286 men who arrived to work in the Stag Canyon mine that morning, only 23 survived.

[11] One of the surviving miners was George Mavroidis who witnessed 16 men around him lose their lives before he himself lost consciousness.

[12] Phelps Dodge sent a special train from El Paso, Texas, with doctors and nurses, but to no avail.

The closures were also due in large part to the completion of the twenty-five year coal contract with the Southern Pacific Railroad.

[16] The tall smoke stacks of the coking ovens were eventually demolished in the early 2000s because they represented a liability to the current owner of the property.

[17][18] The cemetery is filled with iron crosses painted white, marking the graves of many miners who died in the mines.

After A38 crosses the adjacent railroad tracks a second time, turn onto the dirt road on the right (which proceeds east of A38 for approximately 1,000 feet (304.8 meters)) to reach the site of the Dawson cemetery.