Travel south on Highway 14 and it’s easy to imagine the dry rugged area as nearly uninhabitable —especially if you’re from greener climes. But ease over a rise, round the bend and instantly you’ll know you’ve come upon something a little different. You’ll know a treasure lies deep in the hills outside Santa Fe. And it’s fitting to call the old mining town of Madrid a treasure. The Cerrillos Hills have long been famous for their valuables. Turquoise brought the Indians; gold lured early prospectors; then coal made entrepreneurs out of speculators.

Today Madrid offers another kind of value: lifestyle. Set apart from the fast pace of modern life, Madrid is slowly making a comeback as a viable town with a slower pace, a different kind of character. In many ways it belongs to another century.

Once a booming coal-mining town, Madrid hosted a population of 4,000 people. The population now hovers around 350. Be sure to pronounce the name of the town correctly, though. It’s not like the city in Spain. Here the accent falls on the first syllable: Má-drid. No one knows why or how this came to be, but mispronounced it becomes the easiest way to separate those in and out of the know.

Like many “discovered” old towns throughout the West, Madrid has become an artists’ colony. Writers meet in the cafes and the old school now houses a cluster of private art studios. Arts and crafts of all kinds are for sale in the renovated old buildings. The town carries a vitality, and some summer days it’s hard to imagine it once nearly died.

Miners started extracting coal from the hills in the 1860s and over the years the town took on a life of its own. In its heyday around the 1930s, the town became famous for its Fourth of July parade, its Christmas light display and was noted for having the first lighted baseball stadium in the West.

What made Madrid an anomaly among mining towns was the mine itself; it contained both hard and soft coal, something found in only two other mines around the world. Shafts here were sometimes set 2,500 feet deep. The coal supplied fuel for the Santa Fe Railroad, local consumers and the U.S. Government. Finally, when other fuel resources took the place of coal, the town dwindled. In 1959 the last shipment of coal left and only 12 people remained. It looked like Madrid was headed to be a ghost town.

Cliff Kato, owner and promoter of the Old Coal Mine Museum, is the town’s walking history book. He and his wife bought the old mine and all the equipment in the early 1980s and have been instrumental in the revival of Madrid.

“The town has seen a number of faces over the years,” Kato said. “It’s been a hippie commune and mountain man hideout. Now there’s a lot of cottage industries.”

For a number of years Madrid sat idle, with only a few holdouts holding on. Then the town started luring people wanting to start over. Mel and Diana Johnson, owners of the Johnson’s of Madrid Galleries of Fine and Fiber Art, arrived in 1973.

Armed with degrees from the Chicago Art Institute and disillusioned with city life, they stumbled upon Madrid quite by accident.

“We were looking for studio space,” Diana Johnson recalled. “We started out by renting part of an old garage. It still had ‘oil change’ painted above the doors.” But young and eager, they went about setting up shop. “We eventually bought the place and we’ve been here ever since.”

As more and more enterprising people moved in, Main Street underwent a transformation. Old clapboard houses and storefronts became refurbished, and now brightly painted fences, doors and windows decorate the boutiques, with well-tended flower gardens adding to the local cheeriness. For many years there wasn’t any place where visitors could get something to eat; now there are three cafes as well as the Mineshaft Tavern. Also several bed and breakfasts have opened, making it possible to stay a few days and feel more a part of things.

In the 1930s, during Madrid’s heyday, people came from all over to see the spectacular Christmas lights. In keeping with tradition Christmas is once again one of ‘the’ places to go at night during the holiday season. “People do as much decorating as they can put their minds to,” said Johnson.

One of the highlights during the summer is the Madrid melodrama, which opens Memorial Day weekend and runs through mid-October. When Kato came to town, he also brought his interest in theater along with him. Every summer opens a new play, often locally written. This year marks the 19th season for the Engine House Theatre Melodrama Company.

“It’s a perfect place for the villain to tie the heroine to the rail road tracks,” he said. “The real coal train locomotive is right behind the stage. It’s a fun time.” And the audience can boo and hiss and throw marshmallows at the villain.

Show times are Saturdays at 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. On Sunday and Monday holidays, only one show starts at 3:00 p.m. For ticket information or to make reservations call 505-438-3780.

Kato believes Madrid is seeing good times again as more people are moving in. The town is slowly becoming a bedroom community of Santa Fe. “It doesn’t have the rough and tumble reputation it once had,” he said, then added as any true legend-maker would, “but we probably still have a few outlaws living in the hills.”

It’s an intriguing speculation especially if you drive a few of the back roads and see the old miner’s houses still on the hillsides. Some are being remodeled, some are leaning heavily into the past. For people with a bent for creative housing, many of the old shacks offer lots for the imagination.

Other newcomers are taking full advantage of the prevalent sun and wind in the area. Not long ago Sam and Diane Deluca bought 52 acres on a remote mesa west of Madrid. “There is so much sun out here. You have to use it,” he said. The Deluca’s 6,800 square foot solar powered house is completely off the grid.

For the handful of residents in Madrid, the place continues to retain that old-time, small town atmosphere. “A lot of stuff happens here,” said Johnson. “On the other hand sometimes the most exciting thing is an empty beer can blowing down the street.”

Madrid truly offers a change of pace from most tourist attractions and after a few hours here, it’s easy to see why it continues to draw a certain crowd.

To get there take I-25 south; take the Madrid exit and travel Hwy 14 for 21 miles.