The HAMMEL MUSEUM started as a beer garden and, in the intervening century, became successively a brewery, an ice plant, a soda bottling plant, and finally ended as an active industry still making ice.

The museum is named in honor of the Hammel family, who came to Socorro in the early 1880's and built the brewery. Clarence Hammel was the last of the family to operate the business. He died in 1986. The structure was willed to the Socorro County Historical Society to become the Hammel Museum. The museum structure was built during the boom years in Socorro which began with the coming of the railroad in 1880 and ended with the closing of the mines by 1893. The museum chronicles the industrial and commercial history of those boom years.

Pictures From Our Trip

Using the gold he had left her, the widow of Juan Nepomuceno Garcia began construction of the Garcia Opera House is 1884. It was completed three years later in 1887. It served as the main center for cultural and community events including theatrical productions, balls, marriages etc. The curved shape of the massive 34-inch walls strengthened the building and improved acoustics. The "rake" stage is one of very few still in existence in the U.S. Restoration began in 1983 and was completed in 1985 by Holm Bursum, Jr.