The silence of Mills Canyon is broken intermittently by distant voices emanating from out-of-sight nooks somewhere above or below the rough one-lane dirt road I’m taking on foot while descending from the rim to the canyon bottom.

As I progress down the path, I read interpretive signs that describe the vision of a man from another time who imagined and created an audacious agricultural enterprise in this place of stunning natural beauty, then saw it all washed away.

This remote stretch of the majestic Canadian River Canyon in northeast New Mexico presents a rugged landscape that echoes with voices of the past and present.

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The ruins of a structure that was part of Melvin Mills' former ranch and orchard, located near the current Mills Canyon Campground. The ranch and orchard were destroyed by a flood that came through the canyon in 1904.

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The sandstone cliffs of Mills Canyon, a stretch of the Canadian River Canyon in northeast New Mexico. The area has become popular with boulderers and rock climbers.

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Different colored layers of sandstone can be seen in a formation known as Shiprock in Mills Canyon near Roy in northeast New Mexico. The area is managed by the Cibola National Forest’s Kiowa and Rita Blanca National Grasslands.

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The ruins of the main house of the ranch complex of influential attorney and political figure Melvin Mills, who began building his ranch and orchard enterprise in the Canadian River Canyon in the 1880s. It was all lost in 1904 when a devastating flood ripped through the canyon.

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The Canadian River flows beneath the sandstone cliffs of Mills Canyon near the town of Roy in northeast New Mexico.



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