Bonito City, a rather grand name for the cluster of log buildings that housed a saloon, post office, schoolhouse, church, general store, a hotel called The Mayberry House, and a number of comfortable residences.

Set amid lofty peaks twelve miles northwest of Ruidoso, apple orchards and livestock of the Bonito settlers flourished in the seven-thousand-foot meadows at the edge of the forests. Trout fishing was excellent in the Bonito River.

God was in his heaven and all was right with the world, or so it seemed when two events took place that would cause this serene and pleasant community to literally disappear. The centerpiece of Bonito City was the two-story log hotel called the Mayberry House operated by Mr. and Mrs. John Mayberry. They had three children; John, Eddie, and Nellie. On the night of May 5, 1885, the Mayberry House leaped into the records books with one of New Mexico's most bizarre crimes.

Earlier that evening a number of miners ate supper there and left. Only two guests had rooms, Dr. R. E. Flynn from Ohio and a youth named Martin Nelson seemed to be pleasant and inoffensive roomers. All were in bed by ten o'clock. About one o'clock in the morning, Nelson arose and knocked on the bedroom door of the two Mayberry boys, John awakened and opened the door, at which point Nelson fired two rifle shots, killing him instantly. He then turned on the seven-year-old Eddie who was screaming in bed. Nelson killed him with a single blast.

Dr. Flynn, hearing the shooting, rushed from his room and was shot through the head. John Mayberry, after hearing the screams, was making his way up the dark stairs from the first floor when a shot through the heart dropped him on the landing. Blood was everywhere. Mayberry's daughter, Nellie, appeared and was shot through the side and left for dead. She later recovered.

Mrs. Mayberry ran upstairs, where Nelson shot her in the chest but failed to kill her. She stumbled downstairs with blood streaming all the way to her feet, leaving bloody footprints visible on the stairs years later. She fled to the nearest cabin for help, but Nelson followed, executed her, and threw her body into an irrigation ditch. Pete Nelson, the saloonkeeper (no relation to Martin Nelson) appeared on the scene, grappled with the youth but was no match for the murderer. Mark Nelson shot him to death and left his body bleeding in the sandy street. The next victim was the storekeeper, Herman Beck, who came out to learn the cause of the gunshots. Nelson killed him with one bullet.

Bonito's terrified citizens locked themselves in their homes until morning while Nelson roamed at large, finally climbing up a nearby mountain. Next morning, as Charlie Berry, Rudolph Schultz and Don Campell were standing in the street discussing the murders, they sighted Nelson returning down the mountain. He saw the men, brought up his rifle to fire, but was an instant too late. Berry felled him with a bullet through the heart. Nelson's last shot went harmlessly into the air as he fell.

Total casualties were eight killed, including the murderer, and one wounded. It was years before the people of Bonito City recovered from the shock, and for fifteen years nobody set foot in the log hotel. Folks said it was haunted, told stories of shrieks and groans in the dead of night, of seeing lights flicker from room to room, or hearing muffled shots. Those who peeped through the dusty windows could see the bloody footprints left by Mrs. Mayberry's feet. The murderer was buried at Bonito with his head pointed down. Folklorists say this custom was to prevent the buried person from walking as a ghost. The victims were also buried in Bonito side by side of each other and a reasonable distance away from the murderer Martin Nelson.

Gradually Bonito City died. The final blow came when the railroad arrived on the desert below and took a business like approach to acquiring water rights in the Bonito Valley and later on buying out the land in which the remaining residents of Bonito City lived. In 1930 Bonito Dam was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad, the remains of the victims were moved to Angus Cemetery. A large stone marks their resting place and as for Bonito City, it is presently resting under seventy-five feet of water that is now known as Bonito Lake.

Since then, Bonito City has become an old memory and a murder mystery of the past. Some people have claimed that during a well moonlit night, they can see the top of the church steeple shining below the serene resting water of the night. Is it really the church steeple being seen seventy-five feet below the water surface, or is it a haunting image reminding us of the presence of the city below? You decide.