The Santa Rita Copper Mines Historical Marker pin points to a mining landscape near Hanover in Grant County, southwestern New Mexico. The most useful visitor context comes from the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, whose guide identifies the Chino Mine and an overlook with educational displays on the south side of New Mexico Highway 152 east of Hanover. This is not an invitation to enter a mine. The distinction between a designated viewing point and an industrial property is essential: the mine is not a public attraction with tours or a visitor timetable in the sources reviewed.
Chino is an open-pit porphyry copper mine about 15 miles east of Silver City, near Hanover. The excavation is also called the Santa Rita Mine or Santa Rita del Cobre, names connected to the former village of Santa Rita. New Mexico Tech’s geology guide says that village was removed in the 1950s as mining expanded. The present landscape therefore carries two intertwined histories: a major mineral deposit and the disappearance of a community whose name remains attached to the district.